It’s too soon to say it was a tornado that caused the damage in Jefferson County last night, but the National Weather Service is taking a hard look at what the storm left behind.

The National Weather Service in Birmingham has gotten many reports of downed trees — some on homes and vehicles — from parts of Jefferson County. That storm rolled through the metro area around midnight and had a severe thunderstorm warning on it at the time.

In addition, weather service radar also picked up indications of possible tornadoes in Lee and Barbour counties on the east side of the state.

There were also more tornado warnings earlier this morning in southeast Alabama’s Dale and Henry counties, which is covered by the NWS in Tallahassee, Fla.

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So far, the weather service has not gotten any reports of injuries from the storms.

“It’s still too soon for us to make a declaration about the damage in Jefferson County,” said National Weather Service Meteorologist Jason Holmes on Sunday morning. “We’re still in that data collection phase.”

No storm damage surveys have been scheduled just yet, but they will come soon, Holmes said. The first step is to look at all the damage and narrow down locations to assess.

“This morning we are continuing to get damage reports. Sometimes it takes a while to get all the information in,” Holmes said Sunday morning.

“As tempting as it is we don’t just jump in the vehicle and drive to somewhere — we try to get as much information as we can on the ground from our partners in emergency management and from the public and the media.”

The areas with the most reports of damage in Jefferson County stretch from Bessemer to Mountain Brook, according to Homes, and include the cities of Hoover, Vestavia Hills and Homewood.

“Most of the damage in Jefferson County that we have seen is between Bessemer and Hoover where we had this almost like a bowing segment with one of the storms that moved northeastward from Bessemer to the Bluff Park area through portions of Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Homewood and then up toward Mountain Brook and then eventually to (U.S.) 280,” he said.

“We really haven’t had many reports around 280 and the east. We did have a wind gust to 58 mph at the Birmingham (International) Airport, which is severe criteria.”

The storm continued to track northeast, into east Jefferson County and then St. Clair County, but the weather service hadn’t as of Sunday morning gotten damage reports from areas like Trussville, Argo, Margaret and Pell City.

“So we’re still looking in those areas to document how far (the damage) extends,” Holmes said.

Holmes said there are also indications of a tornado in Lee and Barbour counties that will need to be assessed.

“We hope to wrap this up later today as far as getting all the information and that way we can draw up some preliminary plans for areas to look at,” he said.

“We don’t have a set time that we plan to go out and survey but we’re definitely interested in looking at all three of those areas and clarifying exactly what happened.”

Meteorologists will travel to the locations affected, track the damage and determine what caused it — whether it is straight-line winds or a tornado. If a tornado is confirmed it will be given a preliminary rating using the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which ranges from EF-0 (weak) to EF-5 (devastating).

Holmes said it would help greatly for the public to send in any reports of damage from the region.

“If anyone else has any damage, please let us know,” he said. “It’s very, very helpful for the public to know if they have anything. They can let message us on social media, they can also reach out to their county emergency manager, there are a variety of ways they can get that information to us.”

Holmes added that it’s not only helpful for the weather service to get damage reports — it can also help those needing to file insurance claims.

“A unique thing to point out is that when people go to make a claim for insurance it’s one of the first things they do is consult our storm report documents, so it helps you to let us know there is damage so they can see in the official record that there is damage reported in your area,” he said.

As bad as the damage is, Holmes said it could have been worse.

“Tennessee really took a hard hit yesterday,” he said. “It could have been a lot worse down here. Conditions were favorable for damaging winds and tornadoes. Sadly we did get some, but it could have been a lot worse.”

The weather service will release any information it has on storm surveys as soon as it is available.

“We are continuing to get information and we encourage the public to let us know what kind of damage we experienced,” Holmes said. “We’ll check on anything that’s suspicious, absolutely.”