EF1 tornado, Wolf Spgs to Rigdom, Alabama, November 18, 2017

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

November 18, 2017

Touchdown

5:18 PM CST (23:18 UTC)

Lifted

5:24 PM CST (23:24 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

4.3 miles (7.0 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Lawrence County

Touchdown point

34.609, -87.462

Lift-off point

34.618, -87.387

Record number

1711181718-01

95 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 110 mph.

• tin wrapped around tree also
• Tin from an unidentified building
• Roof and supports from car port ripped out of concrete and displaced. House had minor roof damage.
• Wood stuck into the ground

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

A narrow fast-moving line of showers and a few embedded thunderstorms produced numerous reports of wind damage and two tornadoes.

A tornado touched down on CR-140 and along a forested area just west of where CR-140 and AL Highway 157 intersect. Just east of Highway 157, a house had significant damage. The tin roof was peeled away from its wooden supports, some of which were broken. Large trees were snapped and uprooted and were laying in multiple directions. A well constructed sturdy barn with metal supports was completely mangled and collapsed. Debris from the barn and the house was tossed into the woods behind it|and wrapped around trees. The tornado then tracked east, with a swath of damage bordering and along CR-140. The houses all along this road had shingle damage, as well as a few holes through the wood of the roof. Another house had an east facing door blown in with a back porch pulled away from another. One house in particular, along with roof damage, had a roof completely removed from a large car port with its supports pulled from the concrete. A trailer was also picked up and placed on top of a tractor. This house also had a row of trees completely snapped near the center of the tree. All along the road there were very large trees uprooted and trunks snapped. The tornado moved east through forested areas before impacting more houses along CR-449. One house had a window blown out and an interior door was twisted along with a small outbuilding collapsed. Next door, a mobile home had the tin peeled off and twisted and some thrown around trees. Siding on the back side was peeled off and the undercarriage was blown out in a few places. A standalone garage port was slightly|shifted off its foundation with the doors blown in. Multiple trees were uprooted and snapped as well. The tornado crossed AL-101 uprooting trees. A mobile home had a few shingles missing along with a few trees uprooted and snapped were found near CR-256 and Broad Hollow Road. No damage was found east of this point.

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.

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. The outlook in force was issued at 19:49 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 Columbus AFB radar (KGWX), 115 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:20 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

15 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.