EF0 tornado, Lapine to Ramer, Alabama, April 22, 2018

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 22, 2018

Touchdown

2:25 PM CDT (19:25 UTC)

Lifted

2:30 PM CDT (19:30 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

2.6 miles (4.1 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Montgomery County

Touchdown point

31.988, -86.260

Lift-off point

32.020, -86.239

Record number

1804221325-01

22 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 90 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 deepening surface low over south Mississippi tracked northeast and into west Alabama by the late afternoon hours on April 22nd. The surface low pushed and warm front northward into Central Alabama and caused the low level winds to back, increasing the |low level shear and instability.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in extreme southwest Montgomery County and determined that the damage was consistent with an EF0 tornado, with maximum sustained winds near 80 mph. The tornado touched down just east of Philadelphia Church Road, northeast of Lapine and west of Grady. The tornado tracked northeastward and crossed Philadelphia Church Road and Naftel Ramer Road. The tornado lifted just after it crossed Smiley Ferry Road. Several trees were uprooted or snapped along the damage path. The most concentrated area of damage was just as the tornado was lifting near Smiley Ferry Road, but still limited to tree damage.

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

10 minutes of warning. NWS BMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:15 UTC, 10 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:45 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), 73 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:27 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.