EF0 tornado, Vinemont to County Line, Alabama, April 30, 2017

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

April 30, 2017

Touchdown

2:12 PM CDT (19:12 UTC)

Lifted

2:20 PM CDT (19:20 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

10.1 miles (16.2 km)

Path width

215 yards (197 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Cullman County

Touchdown point

34.240, -86.870

Lift-off point

34.300, -86.720

Record number

1704301312-01

18 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.

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

A squall line tracked east-northeast through northern Alabama from midday through the early evening hours. The storms produced several reports of trees and limbs being knocked down. One home weather station report an 87 mph wind gust in Cullman County in the vicinity where pine trees were snapped. NWS Damage Assessment Team also found indications of an EF-0 tornado embedded in a bowing line in far northern Cullman County.

A NWS survey team determined the minor damage across portions of northern Cullman County was attributed to an EF-0 tornado with peak winds of 75 MPH.||A strong, bowing line of storms moved quickly through Cullman County during the afternoon of April 30. Within the bowing segment, rotation was detected on radar which tracked through the north central portions of the county. ||The damage team found several EF-0 damage indicators in the Vinemont area in the form of uprooted softwood trees and large limb damage. General storm motion from the severe line was northeast. Debris was observed either in a convergent pattern or|oriented in sporadic directions.||The tornado continued north of CR 1422 and CR 1518 toward the Cullman-Morgan Co. line, south of Eva. In this area, the most concentrated area of damage was observed near CR 1526. Amongst several trees uprooted, a metal roof was blown off a large garage/barn and pushed into a single family residence. Additionally, minor roof shingle damage was reported further north on CR 1526. The tornado likely dissipated near CR 1527.

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

3 minutes of warning. NWS HUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:09 UTC, 3 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 15:39 UTC and running to 20:11 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:29 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.

Cullman (CMD), 6 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Northeast Alabama radar (KHTX), 98 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:12 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 2017 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

42 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.