EF1 tornado, Rainsville, Alabama, December 29, 2021

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

December 29, 2021

Touchdown

8:21 PM CST (02:21 UTC)

Lifted

8:29 PM CST (02:29 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

6.0 miles (9.7 km)

Path width

285 yards (261 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

DeKalb County

Touchdown point

34.517, -85.943

Lift-off point

34.511, -85.838

Record number

2112292021-01

27 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 104 mph.

• Small limbs about 100 yards in the distance.

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

An EF-1 tornado developed in southwest DeKalb County atop Sand Mountain during the mid evening hours along a line of thunderstorms moving east across north central into northeast Alabama. Also, heavy rains led to brief flooding in Cullman County.

An EF-1 tornado with maximum winds of 104 mph touched down just east of County Road 120, where a small outbuilding was destroyed. The tornado moved in an easterly direction, uprooting several trees as it crossed S. Broad Street. As the tornado neared Kirk Road SW, it intensified to its highest strength, snapping or uprooting dozens of trees and causing minor roof damage to several homes. The tornado continued to the east, uprooting more trees along its path as it crossed Highway 35. The tornado began to weaken as it neared Rainbow Road, uprooting a few more trees and destroying a couple of carports. The tornado eventually crossed Church Street where roof damage occurred at BlueScope Steel, before lifting just west of Highway 75.

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

3 minutes of warning. NWS HUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:18 UTC, 3 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:53 UTC and running to 02:59 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:56 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 Northeast Alabama radar (KHTX), 50 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:23 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 2021 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

7 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.