EF0 tornado, Underwood Xrds to Section, Alabama, March 18, 2013

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

March 18, 2013

Touchdown

2:10 PM CDT (19:10 UTC)

Lifted

2:13 PM CDT (19:13 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

1.6 miles (2.6 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Colbert County

Touchdown point

34.729, -87.495

Lift-off point

34.728, -87.467

Record number

1303181310-01

20 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS HUN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.

• possibly came from undercarriage of single wide just north of residence
• Start point of EF-0 tornado

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

An active severe weather episode was produced by two quasi-linear convective systems. The first developed during the midday hours across middle Tennessee into northwest Alabama, while another which originated as a small convective cluster in central Arkansas rapidly intensified and raced eastward through northern Mississippi into north Alabama during the afternoon hours. Numerous reports of wind damage, large hail and four tornadoes. Two of the tornadoes injured ten people and produced significant damage to mobile homes, trees, and power poles.

A weak and short-lived tornado touched down about 2 miles northwest of Leighton, snapping trees near the intersection of 6th Street and Hatton School Road. Just to the east of this location, large pines were uprooted and snapped, and minor structural and roof damage to a residence occurred. A car port was lifted and destroyed and the undercarriage from a single-wide mobile home was pulled out and thrown into a nearby tree. The tornado continued to track east, uprooting trees in an open field and additional large cedar trees were snapped along its path at Shaw Cemetery. The tornado continued just a bit farther east before apparently lifting just east of Shaw Road, just north of 6th Street. Sporadic wind damage, possibly due to inflow winds was observed around the narrow tornado track with several trees snapped on either side of 6th Street nearing the Lawrence County line.

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 severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 18:32 UTC and running to 20:33 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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:27 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.

Muscle Shoals Regional (MSL), 11 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Columbus AFB radar (KGWX), 121 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:11 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 2013 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

9 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.