EF1 tornado, Penn to Massey, Alabama, March 25, 2010

1. EF065 to 85 mph

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

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

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

3. EF2111 to 135 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. EF3136 to 165 mph

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

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

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

6. EF5over 200 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

EF1

Date

March 25, 2010

Touchdown

5:40 PM CDT (22:40 UTC)

Lifted

5:50 PM CDT (22:50 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

2.9 miles (4.6 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Morgan County

Touchdown point

34.360, -87.085

Lift-off point

34.372, -87.037

Record number

1003251640-01

Low topped supercell thunderstorms developed across northwest and north central Alabama ahead of a strong cold front and beneath a pronounced southwesterly upper level jet stream and dry slot. Despite low instability, strong low and deep layer wind shear provided an environment adequate for meso-cyclone development. Two of the supercells exhibited strong rotation that tracked through Morgan and Cullman Counties producing large hail and one tornado.

An EF-1 tornado touched down just inside southwest Morgan county, west of Massey. This tornado tracked east northeast along a 3 mile path before dissipating. Initial damage was seen off of Holladay road and CR 55, where a mobile home was flipped upside down and several surrounding large trees were snapped near their base. Additional damage occurred along Summerford road between Tanner road and CR 55. A small barn was completed destroyed and two chicken houses sustained significant loss roof and siding panels. Just to the east of this location at Safe-T-Shelter, off of CR 55, a portion of the roof was completely lifted off one of their warehouses as the front of the facility collapsed on itself.

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

10 minutes of warning. NWS HUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:30 UTC, 10 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:00 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 18:50 UTC and running to 00:00 UTC.

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 19:46 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.

Cullman/Folsom_field_arpt (3A1), 21 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Northeast Alabama radar (KHTX), 109 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:38 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.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2010 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

2 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.