EF1 tornado, Higdon to Ider, Alabama, June 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

June 22, 2018

Touchdown

6:25 PM CDT (23:25 UTC)

Lifted

6:30 PM CDT (23:30 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

1.7 miles (2.8 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Jackson and DeKalb counties

Touchdown point

34.851, -85.620

Lift-off point

34.848, -85.590

Record number

1806221725-01

21 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 90 mph.

• first tree fell back left second tree fell upper left

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

A supercell tracked east along the far northern part of north Alabama near the state line during the early afternoon. This cell produced wall clouds, a couple of funnel clouds, localized wind damage and at least one report of penny sized hail.||Later that evening, supercells produced an EF-2 tornado in Cullman County and an EF-1 tornado in Jackson County as seen on video.

The tornado touched down just west of AL Highway 71, about 1 mile northeast of Higdon, AL where a tree was snapped off at the top along with other very large branches broken off on the property. It then tracked east and on County Road 292 it uprooted a large tree that fell on a truck and a house. Another small uprooted tree was noted in the area as well. The tornado continued east and as it crossed County Road 269 a small clearing in the trees was noted along with a large tree split at the base. The tornado then continued into far northeast DeKalb County.

After the tornado crossed from Jackson into DeKalb County, a house on County Road 169 had the most damage with three very healthy trees completely snapped off at the exact same height with estimated winds of 990 mph. Other trees on the property were snapped near the base and multiple very large limbs were knocked down. This is where the tornado was at its widest with other snapped trees noted along County Road 169. The last of the damage was found on County Road 817 with a metal roof from a house peeled off and thrown behind the house. A snapped tree was observed as well.

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, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:43 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.

LaFayette (9A5), 34 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

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

6 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.