EF1 tornado, Town Creek to Avoca, Alabama, July 14, 2015

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

July 14, 2015

Touchdown

6:14 PM CDT (23:14 UTC)

Lifted

6:25 PM CDT (23:25 UTC)

On the ground

11 minutes

Path length

11.4 miles (18.4 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Lawrence County

Touchdown point

34.688, -87.429

Lift-off point

34.626, -87.243

Record number

1507141714-01

56 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS HUN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.

• damage caused by tree falling on house
• fell across highway 20 and was facing north
• trees fell on house, fell west

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

A quasi-linear convective system (QLCS) dropped southward into the Tennessee Valley during the afternoon and evening hours. The airmass was very unstable, and despite low to moderate low to mid level wind shear, multiple swaths of damaging winds occurred. Within these pockets of winds, a few weak and mostly short-lived tornadoes developed. The most concentrated wind and tornado damage occurred in portions of Lauderdale, Colbert, and Lawrence Counties including the Shoals region of Florence, Sheffield, Muscle Shoals, Town Creek and Courtland. Other short-lived tornadoes occurred in Madison, Morgan and Cullman Counties. Unfortunately, one person was killed by a falling tree near West Point in Cullman County.

A tornado developed along County Road 273 about one mile west of Town Creek downing a telephone pole and several trees. The tornado tracked southeast towards the northwest part of Town Creek removing roof shingles and bending the metal roof off of the Hazelwood High School building. Along Hazelwood Street numerous trees were snapped or uprooted behind the school. The tornado continued southeast towards Factor Street where more snapped and uprooted trees were found. Then, the tornado crossed Highway 101 causing damage to the porch of a residence. Multiple large trees were snapped or uprooted near a bank and a couple of houses along Church and Meredith Streets as the tornado proceeded southeast crossing Highway 20. South of Highway 20, softwood tree tops and hardwood trees were snapped causing damage to a residence near Auburn Street. Additional tree damage was found near the Lawrence County Industrial Air Park and Valley Landing Golf Course where multiple trees were snapped. One large Hardwood tree was uprooted near the Lockheed Martin Facility near Courtland.||The tornado then proceeded southeast and crossed County Road 150 about one mile south of Courtland resulting in multiple hardwood and softwood trees being snapped. It then proceeded toward Highway 33 where several hardwood and softwood trees were snapped and uprooted. The tornado then moved towards County Road 377 about one and one half miles south of Highway 20 where it lifted after snapping the top of one hardwood tree.

The tornado tracked from Colbert County into Lawrence County along the Bring Crossing. The tornado then crossed over Stillhouse Hollow before producing minor tree damage along County Roads 135 and 136. The tornado then lifted shortly after.

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 21:00 UTC and running to 01:26 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 Enhanced Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:55 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 Northeast Alabama radar (KHTX), 118 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:14 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 2015 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.