TornadoLookup

Home / Alabama / Colbert

EF1 tornado in Colbert County, Alabama

Tornado February 5, 2020 · Colbert County, Alabama

EF1
Rating
1.3 mi
Path length
60 yd
Path width
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 60 yards (0.03 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

A tornado uprooted a couple trees near Petertown Road, which runs parallel to the MS/AL border and continued slightly northeastward toward Allsboro Road. As the tornado crossed Allsboro Road, it caused more widespread damage along Bishop Lane. Several trees were uprooted while a few softwoods were snapped.

Structural damage, in the form of small farm buildings/sheds, was observed further down Bishop Lane. These structures sustained roof damage while one building also had a collapse of its walls. The tornado continued eastward and uprooted two more trees before lifting about three quarters of a mile east of Allsboro Road.

The wider storm

A strong influx of moisture, along with a potent upper level jet stream and incoming cold front brought multiple rounds of showers and thunderstorms, some heavy from the early morning of the 5th through the early morning of the 6th. The first round yielded heavy rainfall in northwest Alabama through southern middle Tennessee during the early morning of the 5th. A second round occurred with a line of thunderstorms during the late morning and midday hours. Intense rainfall in a short period of time led to several instances of flash flooding of small creeks and streams. Several roads were closed or barricaded as a result.

Then, a strong to severe line of thunderstorms developed in Mississippi during the afternoon of the 6th and rolled east through all of north Alabama and southern middle Tennessee during the evening hours. A supercell embedded along the line produced an EF-1 tornado in western Colbert County. As the line progressed east, several reports of wind damage were received. These storms also produced intense rainfall on top of already saturated grounds, producing flash flooding, followed by areal flooding that last through the entire day and into the nighttime hours of the 6th. Once again, several roads became impassible and were closed or barricaded.

This was followed by another band of showers and thunderstorms that lifted northeast from west central and central Alabama through far northeast Alabama during the early morning hours of the 6th.

Began near Bishop (34.6617, -88.1282).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 870415. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

Tornadoes near your address

See every tornado that passed near a place you know, measured to its path.