EF1 tornado in Geneva County, Alabama

The tornado touched down about 3.5 miles south of Slocomb, AL and proceeded east northeast and impacted multiple single family homes and a few manufactured homes.

Most of the damage was roof damage, but a few manufactured homes were shifted off their anchor points. The most significant damage happened about a half of a mile northwest of the intersection of Mozell Rd and Cotton Box Rd. At this location the tornado passed over a single family home and the 110 mile per hour winds estimated at this location gained entry into the garage and removed the entire garage roof and some parts of the roof over the house. Immediately behind the house and along the path of the tornado a manufactured home was lifted off its anchor points and rotated about 10 to 15 feet from its original location. The damage at these locations was consistent with a high end EF-1 tornado and winds were estimated to be around 110 mph at this point. The tornado continued to move east from its strongest point and eventually crossed the

intersection of Grant Rd. and County Rd 103 where EF-1 damage was found to manufactured homes and single family homes. The tornado then crossed Old Chipley Rd where it impacted a barn with EF-1 damage. Finally the tornado moved just east-southeast and appeared to have lifted just east of County Rd 49 after causing low end EF-1 damage to some larger trees. Damage cost was estimated.

This event featured all modes of severe weather in our forecast area, including 13 tornadoes, numerous reports of straight-line wind damage, and even large hail. The 13 tornadoes consisted of 1 EF3, 2 EF2s, 6 EF1s, and 4 EF0s. This is a very high number of tornadoes for our forecast area for a single event. This compares with 7 tornadoes in the 1/22/17 event, 8 tornadoes in the 1/2/17 event, and 10 tornadoes in the 3/1/07 event. This may have been the most tornadoes for a single event in our area since the Hurricane Ivan tornadoes back in 2004. The synoptic pattern was characterized by a fast-moving upper trough through relatively zonal flow. The forecast area was under the favorable right entrance region of the upper jet with lots of upper level divergence. An 850 mb jet near or in excess of 50 knots was also present, which is another typical ingredient for severe weather in this part of the country in the cool season. Cool season levels of shear (0-1 km shear > 30 knots and 0-6 km shear > 50 knots) were overlaid with moderate levels of instability (SBCAPE 1500 j/kg), as opposed to more typical winter SBCAPE < 500 j/kg. Without this strong low-level jet, the low-level shear values would have been weaker and we would have probably seen less tornadoes.