EF1 tornado, Suttle to Vine Hill, 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 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 2, 2012

Touchdown

9:15 PM CST (03:15 UTC)

Lifted

9:37 PM CST (03:37 UTC)

On the ground

22 minutes

Path length

18.9 miles (30.4 km)

Path width

700 yards (640 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Perry, Dallas and Autauga counties

Touchdown point

32.549, -87.153

Lift-off point

32.635, -86.846

Record number

1203022115-01

24 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BMX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 125 mph.

• 1 pine snapped. End point of Little Oakmulgee Creek EF-1 Tornado.
• 1 pine snapped lying on road
• 20-30 pines snapped, couple uprooted
• 30-40 pines snapped, few uprooted. end of width.

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 in rural southeast Perry County along Oscar Price Road, just northeast of Suttle. Dozens of trees were snapped or uprooted and one hunting camp mobile home was destroyed, as the tornado moved northeastward. The tornado crossed Oakmulgee Creek and moved into Northeast Dallas County, before eventually lifting in Autauga County.

A tornado initially touched down in rural southeast Perry County along Oscar Price Road, just northeast of Suttle. It followed a northeastward path through southeastern Perry County, before crossing the Oakmulgee Creek, moving into Dallas County. In this location, at least 1000 trees were snapped in a wide swath near County Road 282. The tornado proceeded to Paul M Grist State Park and blown out winds and tore shingles off at the park center. Additionally, two campers were toppled, and hundreds more trees were snapped. The tornado continued northeast toward Highway 22 and County Road 294, where a brick home sustained minor damage and hundreds more trees were snapped or uprooted. It continued to snap and uproot many more trees across northern Dallas County, before crossing into Autauga county, where it eventually lifted.

A tornado initially touched down in rural southeast Perry County along Oscar Price Road, just northeast of Suttle. It then tracked northeast across northern Dallas County, before crossing Mulberry Creek, moving into Autauga County. As it moved into Autauga County, just north of Vine hill, dozens of trees were snapped. It continued a short path, snapping a few more trees, before it lifted near County Road 31, just north of Bethel Grove.

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

37 minutes of warning. NWS BMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:38 UTC, 37 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:30 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.

The Birmingham radar (KBMX), 68 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:17 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

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.