Tornadoes · United States · Alabama · 2001

F1 tornado, Lincoln, Alabama, August 31, 2001

This F1 tornado ran 3.5 miles across Talladega County on August 31, 2001, touching down at 6:02 PM CDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $70,000 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
August 31, 2001
Touchdown
6:02 PM CDT (23:02 UTC)
Path length
3.5 miles (5.6 km)
Path width
30 yards (27 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$70,000
County
Talladega County
Touchdown point
33.600, -86.170
Lift-off point
33.630, -86.130
Record number
368

What the Weather Service recorded

A small tornado touched down in a wooded area just southwest of exit 165 on Interestate 20. The tornado moved northeast moving across three structures on the south side of the Interstate, two of the structures suffered extensive damage. The tornado moved across CR 207 where several trees were downed and a small portion of the roof of an unoccupied building was damaged. It crossed two mobile home parks, downing trees, ripping pieces of siding from several mobile homes, and pushing one off it's foundation. It crossed US 78 where another mobile home had some siding ripped away from it. It moved through an open area that was inaccessible and then damaged several trees on the north side of the town of Lincoln. No additional damage was found beyond that point. The weak tornado came out of a bowing echo that also caused some damage mainly to trees in Calhoun County. Beginning: 33 35.333N 86 10.056W Ending: 33 37.564N 86 07.641W

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:49 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

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.

Birmingham, AL (KBMX), 12:00Z

11.0 hours before the tornado, 76 km from the path. August 31, 2001.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Birmingham, AL at 12:00Z on 2001-08-31Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 1095 joules per kilogram, CIN -19, lifted condensation level 628 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, Birmingham, AL at 12:00Z on 2001-08-31The 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 83 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 30 knots.193958Sfc1 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
1095 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-19 J/kg
Surface CAPE
233 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
628 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
30 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
18 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
83 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
193 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.3
Supercell composite
2.5
0-3 km lapse rate
5.1 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Birmingham, AL (KBMX), 00:00Z

1.0 hours after it, 76 km from the path. September 1, 2001.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Birmingham, AL at 00:00Z on 2001-09-01Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 47 joules per kilogram, CIN -18, lifted condensation level 695 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, Birmingham, AL at 00:00Z on 2001-09-01The 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 110 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 16 knots.1939Sfc1 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
47 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-18 J/kg
Surface CAPE
192 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
695 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
16 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
24 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
110 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
100 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.1
0-3 km lapse rate
4.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Anniston (ANB), 28 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
21:53 UTC817480° 5 kt1015.2
22:53 UTC79730° 0 kt1015.6
23:23 UTC78.873.40° 0 kt1015.9VCTS
23:32 UTC75.273.4250° 20 kt261017.6+TSRA BR
23:36 UTC71.669.8260° 23 kt281017.6+TSRA FG
23:42 UTC71.669.8270° 14 kt281017.6+TSRA FG
23:45 UTC71.669.8270° 11 kt1017.6+TSRA BR
23:53 UTC7169260° 8 kt1017.6-TSRA BR
00:02 UTC71.669.8250° 9 kt1017.6-TSRA
00:39 UTC69.869.8260° 7 kt1017.9-RA BR
00:53 UTC7069250° 9 kt1018.3-RA BR

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

The radar

The Birmingham radar (KBMX), 76 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:02 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2001 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of August 31, 2001

1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
August 311:56 PM CDTF0Chambers, TX1.030

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.