EF0 tornado, Ellawhite, Alabama, January 26, 2012

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

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

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   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

EF0

Date

January 26, 2012

Touchdown

11:00 AM CST (17:00 UTC)

Lifted

11:01 AM CST (17:01 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.6 miles (1.0 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Perry County

Touchdown point

32.438, -87.499

Lift-off point

32.444, -87.492

Record number

1201261100-01

9 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BMX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 80 mph.

• Southern extent of width. Trees down.
• Large branches snapped. End point of Uniontown EF-0 Tornado.
• Large branches broken. Start point of Uniontown EF-0 Tornado.
• Trees uprooted on Church Street in Uniontown.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

An upper level low pressure system moved across the Mississippi Valley region, deepening as it moved east. A cold front extending southward from the low moved across central Alabama during the late morning hours on Thursday, January 26. This provided a focus for thunderstorms to develop in the form of a squall line. Instability and weak shear were high enough for isolated severe thunderstorms to develop.

An EF0 tornado with winds of 80 mph touched down southeast of Uniontown, at the intersection of Cahaba Road and Yelverton Street. In this location several trees were uprooted. It then traveled northeastward, uprooting more trees along the path, and causing minor roof and siding damage to 5 homes. One home on Church Street was shifted off its foundation. From there the tornado traveled through a wooded area, breaking large branches off trees before it lifted. Key indicators of this weak tornado included very small amounts of leaf and grass splattering and roof damage on the downstream side of the homes. Several eyewitnesses confirmed seeing the tornado as it left the area.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 15:55 UTC and running to 19:00 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 16:31 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 Birmingham radar (KBMX), 106 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:01 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 2012 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

3 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.