EF1 tornado, Crews to Winfield, 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

6:27 PM CST (00:27 UTC)

Lifted

6:47 PM CST (00:47 UTC)

On the ground

20 minutes

Path length

17.5 miles (28.2 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Lamar and Marion counties

Touchdown point

33.917, -88.082

Lift-off point

33.931, -87.776

Record number

2112291827-01

43 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BMX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• UAS Footage, damage pointed SE (north of center).

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 northern Lamar County and determined that it was consistent with an EF0 tornado, with maximum winds near 75 mph. The tornado touched down southwest of the town of Beaverton near Highway 77, about one-quarter of a mile north of Highway 278. The tornado tracked east across Highway 278 producing sporadic tree damage as it crossed Turkey Branch Road and Markham Road. A small barn was also damaged in this area. The tornado then crossed into far southwestern Marion County near Reese Road.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in southwest Marion County and determined that it was consistent with an EF1 tornado, with maximum winds near 110 mph. The tornado crossed into Marion County from Lamar County near Reese Road and produced mostly uprooted softwood trees as it tracked eastward near the Marion/Fayette County line. The tornado began a slight shift to the northwest and rapidly intensified as it approached the city of Winfield. The tornado produced EF1 damage in the downtown sections of Winfield. Several businesses sustained roof and structural damage with windows being blown out of others. A strip mall lost a large section of its roof structure. The tornado narrowed fairly rapidly as it exited downtown and began to weaken as it moved through more residential areas east of downtown. Damage east of downtown consisted of mostly uprooted softwood trees, but a few homes sustained minor roof damage near the intersection of Bankhead Highway and Dove Street.

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

0 minutes of warning. NWS BMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:27 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:36 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:53 UTC and running to 03:09 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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. 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.

Haleyville (1M4), 50 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Columbus AFB radar (KGWX), 37 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:26 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.