F1 tornado, White Hall, Alabama, April 30, 2005

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.

Rating

F1

Date

April 30, 2005

Touchdown

6:52 AM CDT (11:52 UTC)

Path length

1.6 miles (2.6 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$110,000

County

Lowndes County

Touchdown point

32.280, -86.780

Lift-off point

32.300, -86.770

Record number

77

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed the damage across northwestern Lowndes County. It was determined that the damage was the result of a tornado that has been rated F1 on the Fujita Scale. The tornado first touched down near Mount Gillard Church, near the Intersection of US 80 and CR 17 around 652 AM CDT. It stayed on the ground for only about a minute, before lifting around 653 AM CDT. The total path length was 1.6 miles with a width of 50 yards at its widest point. This path was parallel to CR 17, with most of the damage on the northwest side of the road. This tornado, with winds estimated around 100 mph, uprooted or snapped dozens of trees, damaged 2 mobile homes severely...produced minor damage to 3 homes and caused severe roof damage to another home. The side of one of the mobile homes was breached by an unidentified piece of debris, resulting in a 7 foot by 3 foot hole. The most substantial damage to a home consisted of approximately one third of the roof being blown off, which resulted in the partial collapse of an exterior wall. One middle aged man was injured in this home but did not seek medical treatment. Begin: 32 16.51/86 44.88 End: 32 17.17/86 43.49

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

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 Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:30 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 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.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2005 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

12 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

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.

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