Tornadoes · United States · Alabama · 2017

EF0 tornado, Alston, Alabama, April 27, 2017

This EF0 tornado ran 1.3 miles across Barbour County on April 27, 2017, touching down at 5:59 PM CDT and reaching 175 yards wide. It killed nobody and injured 3.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
April 27, 2017
Touchdown
5:59 PM CDT (22:59 UTC)
Lifted
6:03 PM CDT (23:03 UTC)
On the ground
4 minutes
Path length
1.3 miles (2.1 km)
Path width
175 yards (160 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
3
County
Barbour County
Touchdown point
31.869, -85.457
Lift-off point
31.881, -85.439
Record number
1704271659-01

The damage survey

30 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 85 mph.

  • Large tree uprooted to the west, large pine tree cut through middle of home. Complete loss.
  • Carport collapse due to falling pine tree. metal structure and supports.
  • 5pm, witness homeowner says tornado formed over Court house and moved near mobile home and damaged tree at this home, no damage to home.
  • Tree in poor health fell onto roof, created 6 holes in the roof.

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

What the Weather Service recorded

A pre-frontal trough moved into Central Alabama on Tuesday night, April 26th. This boundary slowly pushed southward and was accompanied by some showers and thunderstorms. The east to west boundary drifted into south central Alabama on the morning of April 27th. The combination of shear, lift along the boundary, increased low level moisture and instability produced by insolation was just enough to spin up a few weak tornadoes.

NWS Meteorologists surveyed damage in central Barbour County and determined the damage was consistent with an EF0 tornado, with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph. The tornado touched down in the Clayton City Limits along Highway 30, just east of Mill Drum Place. The tornado tracked northeast and uprooted a few trees on Clayton Street and Midway Street. One of these large trees landed on a mobile home. One adult and two children were injured at this location on Midway Street. The tornado continued northeast and went through the eastern part of Clayton. Several trees were uprooted and several structures suffered minor damage or trees landed on them. The tornado lifted at Oak Avenue just before Browder Street.

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

What forecasters said that day

The local office's own words before the tornado touched down, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.

NWS Birmingham, AL wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Apr 27, 3:52 PM CDT, 2 hours 7 minutes earlier.

Area forecast discussion, Apr 27, 3:52 PM CDT, 2 hours 7 minutes before
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Hazardous weather outlook, Apr 27, 5:56 PM CDT, 3 minutes before
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In the hours before

Local storm report, Apr 27, 12:28 PM CDT, 5 hours 31 minutes before
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The surface observations

Eufaula (EUF), 31 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
00:00 UTC

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

The radar

The Ft Rucker radar (KEOX), 46 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:59 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.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2017 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of April 27, 2017

5 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
April 279:03 AM CDTEF1Montgomery, AL5.6250
April 2711:25 AM CDTEF1Pike, AL4.9150
April 271:15 PM EDTEF2Talbot, GA21.7700$317,000
April 274:18 PM CDTEF0Barbour, AL1.275
April 275:21 PM MDTEF0Sherman, KS1.550

What this means

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.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.