Tornadoes · United States · Alabama · 1963

F1 tornado, Cherokee and Floyd counties, Alabama and Georgia, March 5, 1963

This F1 tornado ran 21.3 miles across Cherokee and Floyd counties on March 5, 1963, touching down at 4:55 PM GMT-6 and reaching 400 yards wide. It killed nobody and injured 5, and did $50,000 to $500,000 of property damage.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  1. F040 to 72 mph

    Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

  2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

    Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

  3. F2113 to 157 mph

    Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

  4. F3158 to 206 mph

    Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

  5. F4207 to 260 mph

    Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

  6. F5261 to 318 mph

    Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

  7. Unrated

    The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

The record

Rating
F1
Date
March 5, 1963
Touchdown
4:55 PM GMT-6 (22:55 UTC)
Path length
21.3 miles (34.3 km)
Path width
400 yards (366 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
5
Property damage
$50,000 to $500,000
Counties
Cherokee and Floyd counties
Touchdown point
33.980, -85.480
Lift-off point
34.170, -85.200
Record number
27

The air that afternoon

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

Athens Municipal, GA (KAHN), 12:00Z

10.9 hours before the tornado, 189 km from the path. March 5, 1963.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Athens Municipal, GA at 12:00Z on 1963-03-05Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 170 joules per kilogram, CIN -43, lifted condensation level 587 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Athens Municipal, GA at 12:00Z on 1963-03-05The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 132 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 64 knots.1939587897117Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
170 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-43 J/kg
Surface CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
587 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
64 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
29 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
132 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
90 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Athens Municipal, GA (KAHN), 00:00Z

1.1 hours after it, 189 km from the path. March 6, 1963.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Athens Municipal, GA at 00:00Z on 1963-03-06Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 110 joules per kilogram, CIN -24, lifted condensation level 670 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Athens Municipal, GA at 00:00Z on 1963-03-06The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 369 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 63 knots.1939587897Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
110 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-24 J/kg
Surface CAPE
133 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
670 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
63 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
35 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
369 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
401 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.1
Supercell composite
0.5
0-3 km lapse rate
5.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Rome/Russell(Ramos) (RMG), 35 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
21:00 UTC615970° 3 kt1005.8TSRA
22:00 UTC6161140° 6 ktTSRA
23:00 UTC616190° 2 kt-TSRA
00:00 UTC6262270° 3 kt1003TSRA

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1963 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of March 5, 1963

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
March 53:35 PM GMT-6F4Jefferson, AL14.966735$50,000 to $500,000

What this means

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.