Tornadoes · United States · Alabama · 2005
F1 tornado, Jasper, Alabama, April 30, 2005
This F1 tornado ran 0.6 miles across Walker County on April 30, 2005, touching down at 3:05 AM CDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $120,000 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.
F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- April 30, 2005
- Touchdown
- 3:05 AM CDT (08:05 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.6 miles (1.0 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $120,000
- County
- Walker County
- Touchdown point
- 33.830, -87.180
- Lift-off point
- 33.830, -87.170
- Record number
- 73
What the Weather Service recorded
National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed the damage that affected east central Walker County. It has been determined the damage was the result of a tornado. The tornado has been rated an F1 with winds estimated around 80 miles an hour. The tornado first touched down at approximately 305 AM CDT in the Union Chapel area, on the north side of US 78. This location is near the intersection of US 78 and Arron Road. The tornado lifted at approximately 306 AM CDT. The tornado damage path was 0.6 miles long and 50 yards wide at its widest point. The most significant damage caused by the tornado occurred to the Variety Outlet and the Valley Used Parts Store. The eastern part of the building was completely destroyed. The remainder of the building sustained extensive roof damage. Roof sections were blown off to the north up to a quarter of a mile and wrapped around a telephone pole. Roof insulation stuck to the western facing store building walls and automobiles in the general vicinity. A flea market sustained major damage on US 78. A few homes also received varying degrees of roof damage. Begin: 33 49.29/87 10.54 End: 33 49.36/87 09.91
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
16 minutes of warning. NWS BMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 07:49 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 08:23 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 07:49 UTC | 08:23 UTC | Tornado Warning | BMX |
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 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 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), 00:00Z
8.1 hours before the tornado, 81 km from the path. April 30, 2005.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 84 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -149 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 180 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1501 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 58 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 16 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 130 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 370 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.1
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 6.7 K/km
The surface observations
Birmingham Municipal (BHM), 49 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 06:53 UTC | 69 | 63 | 180° 11 kt | 18 | 1008.8 | |
| 07:06 UTC | 69.8 | 64.4 | 190° 10 kt | 19 | 1008.5 | |
| 07:53 UTC | 70 | 65 | 200° 16 kt | 1008.1 | ||
| 08:53 UTC | 69 | 67 | 200° 10 kt | 17 | 1007.1 | |
| 09:28 UTC | 69.8 | 66.2 | 250° 8 kt | 1007.5 | +TSRA BR | |
| 09:45 UTC | 66.2 | 62.6 | 310° 20 kt | 37 | 1008.1 | -TSRA |
| 09:53 UTC | 63 | 61 | 290° 24 kt | 35 | 1008.5 | +TSRA FG |
| 10:00 UTC | 62.6 | 60.8 | 250° 9 kt | 34 | 1008.1 | +TSRA BR |
| 10:02 UTC | 62.6 | 60.8 | 250° 10 kt | 28 | 1008.5 | +TSRA BR |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Birmingham radar (KBMX), 82 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 08:04 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 2005 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of April 30, 2005
12 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 30 | 3:30 AM CDT | F0 | Covington, MS | 3.0 | 50 | $50,000 | ||
| April 30 | 4:16 AM CDT | F0 | Tuscaloosa, AL | 6.9 | 100 | $100,000 | ||
| April 30 | 4:20 AM CDT | F0 | Marion, MS | 4.0 | 50 | $10,000 | ||
| April 30 | 5:04 AM CDT | F1 | Shelby, AL | 11.6 | 100 | $400,000 | ||
| April 30 | 5:22 AM CDT | F1 | Shelby, AL | 2.2 | 150 | $200,000 | ||
| April 30 | 6:14 AM CDT | F1 | Tallapoosa, AL | 17.3 | 200 | $80,000 | ||
| April 30 | 6:14 AM CDT | F1 | Clay, AL | 10.6 | 200 | $80,000 | ||
| April 30 | 6:26 AM CDT | F1 | Randolph, AL | 2.7 | 200 | $20,000 | ||
| April 30 | 6:52 AM CDT | F1 | Lowndes, AL | 1.6 | 50 | 1 | $110,000 | |
| April 30 | 7:20 AM CDT | F0 | Crenshaw, AL | 4.0 | 200 | $150,000 | ||
| April 30 | 7:54 AM CDT | F0 | Bullock, AL | 12.6 | 125 | $40,000 | ||
| April 30 | 8:12 AM CDT | F1 | Barbour, AL | 10.0 | 75 | $40,000 |
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.