EF2 tornado, Verbena to Mountain Creek, Alabama, March 2, 2012

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 mph

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

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

March 2, 2012

Touchdown

10:01 PM CST (04:01 UTC)

Lifted

10:33 PM CST (04:33 UTC)

On the ground

32 minutes

Path length

28.3 miles (45.5 km)

Path width

700 yards (640 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Chilton and Coosa counties

Touchdown point

32.725, -86.536

Lift-off point

32.849, -86.073

Record number

1203022201-01

50 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BMX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 125 mph.

• Start point of Eagle Creek EF-2 Tornado.
• End point of Verbena-Nixburg EF-2 Tornado.
• Several hardwood trees snapped at sandy creek and 447. Width 200 yds. Start point of Verbena-Nixburg EF-2 Tornado.
• Trees snapped multiple directions. At least 1 mobile home destroyed.

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

On March 2, 2012, a strong cold front moved through Central Alabama. Severe thunderstorms developed along and ahead of this front. Some of these thunderstorms were supercells. These supercells produced damage across southern and eastern sections of the area. Damaging straight line winds, tornadoes, large hail and localized flooding occurred with this event.

A tornado touched down just west of Interstate 65, south of exit 200 in Chilton County. Here, a few trees were snapped or uprooted. It quickly strengthened and grew to its maximum width of 700 yards as it crossed County Road 502. The tornado moved east across US Highway 31 near the intersection with County Road 526, 1.5 miles south of Verbena. The tornado intensified to 125 mph and destroyed one home and caused significant damage to another, as well as mowing down hundreds of trees around the two homes. The tornado continued to snap and uproot trees as it neared County Road 524, where it also destroyed two single-wide manufactured homes and caused significant damage to two homes. A total of thirteen homes were damage or destroyed in and around Verbena. The tornado then crossed into Coosa County, before it eventually lifted.

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

16 minutes of warning. NWS BMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 03:45 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:14 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:37 UTC and running to 04:57 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 00:30 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.

Alexander City (ALX), 35 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

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

69 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 70 of them

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.