EF0 tornado, County Line, Alabama, February 28, 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

February 28, 2018

Touchdown

4:46 PM CST (22:46 UTC)

Lifted

4:48 PM CST (22:48 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.3 miles (2.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Cullman County

Touchdown point

34.295, -86.724

Lift-off point

34.306, -86.705

Record number

1802281646-01

15 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 75 mph.

• tin debris from large outbuilding/barn
• roof of barn partially removed and some pieces blown about 200 yards
• bradford pears snapped near the base; wind speeds downgraded due to bradford pear species
• mailbox pushed over due to wind

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

A series of mini-supercells with little or no lightning developed during the late afternoon hours across portions of northwest and north central Alabama south of the Tennessee River. One of these produced a brief tornado in Cullman County.

The tornado first touched down along CR 1526. Here several trees had damage including large limbs snapped and a few small trees were uprooted. A home sustained shingle and gutter damage in this area.||The tornado moved northeast crossing CR 1527. Here some shallow rooted trees were pushed over with others having limbs snapped. The tornado reached a maximum intensity of around 75 mph as it crossed CR 1542. A rather large barn sustained significant roof damage. A nearby home had its porch damaged when the roof sustained partial uplift and movement.||Another barn in an adjacent field also sustained substantial damage with most of the roof being pulled off and damage to at least one supporting side. The tornado lifted in a field just south of Pentecost Road.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:48 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), 14 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), 91 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:43 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

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.