EF1 tornado, Blackrock to Highland Home, Alabama, April 22, 2018

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

April 22, 2018

Touchdown

2:11 PM CDT (19:11 UTC)

Lifted

2:15 PM CDT (19:15 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

2.2 miles (3.5 km)

Path width

175 yards (160 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Crenshaw County

Touchdown point

31.909, -86.306

Lift-off point

31.936, -86.288

Record number

1804221311-01

25 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BMX and NWS MOB, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 95 mph.

• 5 large hardwoods uprooted. several tree tops snapped
• numerous trees with branches that are snapped.
• approximate start point by sight.
• Tree damage visible at this location via high resolution satellite imagery.

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

A strong upper level system combined with a moist and unstable air mass to generate strong and severe thunderstorms across the area. The storms produced several weak tornadoes along with wind damage.

The EF-1 tornado touched down just prior to crossing Jeffcoast Road, then moved north-northeast destroying a manufactured home, causing moderate damage to a second manufactured home, destroyed a shed, and uprooted and snapped large trees, one of which fell on a vehicle. The tornado was at its widest as it cut through a grove of trees and open fields before crossing Chapel Hill Road. A metal roof was then torn off a barn and thrown one-third of a mile back to the south. The tornado then caused sporadic damage as it passed through mainly wooded areas uprooting and snapping large trees, with one falling on a house causing minor damage, before lifting near Center Ridge Road.

The tornado touched down near Daniel Mill Road causing minor tree damage and then passed through mainly wooded areas as it moved north-northeast. The tornado strengthened to an EF-1 before reaching Oliver Myers Road, passing through wooded areas uprooting and snapping large trees as it approached a small lake in the Magnolia Shores area. The tornado caused minor to moderate damage to several homes around the lake, mainly to roofs and siding. The tornado then proceeded through more woods before dissipating.

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

24 minutes of warning. NWS MOB issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:47 UTC, 24 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:15 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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:11 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 Maxwell AFB radar (KMXX), 83 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:07 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 2018 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

10 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.