EF0 tornado, Glencoe, Alabama, December 29, 2021

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

December 29, 2021

Touchdown

9:02 PM CST (03:02 UTC)

Lifted

9:04 PM CST (03:04 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.2 miles (1.9 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Etowah County

Touchdown point

33.968, -85.935

Lift-off point

33.974, -85.915

Record number

2112292102-01

12 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BMX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 75 mph.

• Material peeled off exterior wall, roof partially torn away (edge of covering visible), drop ceiling tiles blow away
• 16 ft travel trailer thrown approx 85 yds to NE of this location. Thrown from near playground next to house into field and large divots seen in the ground where it landed. 2nd pic of trailer (with doors open) and roof of house can be seen in distance.
• Large pine snapped at base and had blown down to the NE, tree top in distance in photo had been moved.
• Large hardwood tree branch broken, trampoline visible in image flew approx 20 yards from yard behind on Oliver St to this backyard on Stone St.

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

A line of storms with embedded supercells developed south of an outflow boundary ahead of a slow-moving cold front, producing damaging winds and several tornadoes across the northern portions of central Alabama during the evening hours on December 29th. The surface boundary shifted into the southern counties of central Alabama on December 30th. The low level shear was not favorable for tornadoes, but the storms were robust enough to produce damaging winds and large hail.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in southern Etowah County and determined that it was consistent with an EF0 tornado, with maximum winds near 75 mph. A tornado touched down just southwest of the intersection of Lonesome Bend Road and Baldwin Street and produced minor roof damage at Glencoe Middle School. The tornado tracked northeast across Lonesome Bend Road, snapping a few trees and causing shingle damage along Stone Street. The tornado uprooted some softwood trees, peeled back the roof of a barn, and shifted a travel trailer just west of Pineview Avenue. After crossing Pineview Avenue, a small shed was destroyed and some minor roof damage was observed to a home before dissipating.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:53 UTC and running to 03:51 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), 108 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:03 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.