EF0 tornado, Heron Bay, Alabama, June 19, 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

June 19, 2021

Touchdown

3:16 AM CDT (08:16 UTC)

Lifted

3:17 AM CDT (08:17 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.1 km)

Path width

25 yards (23 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

County

Mobile County

Touchdown point

30.310, -88.138

Lift-off point

30.311, -88.138

Record number

2106190216-01

1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MOB, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.

• Waterspout moved ashore at the Cedar Point Pier. Storage trailer lifted off ground and moved 10 feet. Unit was heavily damaged. Light poles and railings on pier damaged as well.

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

Potential Tropical Cyclone Claudette moved west of the Alabama coastal waters on the evening of June 18th, 2021. Claudette was declared a Tropical Storm and made landfall in southeast Louisiana during the early morning hours of June 19th. Claudette then turned northeast across southeast Mississippi and across south central Alabama during the morning on Saturday June 19th.||Tropical Storm Claudette produced frequent tropical storm-force wind gusts across coastal Alabama and the western Florida Panhandle. A few areas of the coast, such as Dauphin Island, Fort Morgan, and the Okaloosa Island Fishing Pier recorded a brief period of sustained minimal tropical storm-force winds.||The highest wind gusts were associated with strong to severe thunderstorms that developed well east of the center of Claudette. These storms most significantly impacted the western Florida Panhandle. The highest wind gust observed was 81 mph at Pensacola International Airport. A Weatherflow site in Santa Rosa Sound recorded a 70 mph wind gust, which was from the same line of storms that resulted in the Pensacola gust. This line of storms produced wind damage in parts of the Pensacola Metro, especially in Ferry Pass. Pace also experienced pockets of wind damage, including one mobile home that lost its roof||The highest winds recorded were sustained winds of 45 mph with gusts to 70 mph in Santa Rosa Sound, 58 mph with gusts to 81 mph at Pensacola Airport, 42 mph with gusts to 52 mph at Okaloosa Island fishing pier. In Mobile Bay, 40 mph with gusts to 49 mph at Buccaneer Yacht Club.||Storm surge inundation ranged from 1-3 feet above normally dry ground across southern Mobile County into Mobile Bay. This flooding resulted in the closure of a few roads, such as Shell Belt Rd in the Bayou La Batre and Coden communities and the US Highway 90 Causeway over Mobile Bay. The highest storm tide recorded was 3.67 ft MHHW at the NOS tide gauge on the Bayou La Batre bridge. In addition to the storm surge, surf heights of 6-12 feet battered the Gulf facing beaches. This impacted the west end of Dauphin Island with a portion of Bienville Blvd closed due to flooding and sand over the road. The Florida side of the Gulf Islands National Seashore was closed for several days due to flooding and sand on roads. ||Claudette produced 3 tornadoes in southwest and south central Alabama: A long track EF-2 tornado that impacted Escambia and Conecuh Counties, an EF-0 tornado in rural Covington County, and an EF-0 tornado in far southern Mobile County.||A widespread 3-6 of rain fell across coastal Alabama into the western Florida Panhandle. 6-9 of rain was recorded over parts of interior southeast MS, with a station in far western Stone County, 11 miles west of Perkinston, recording 9.43. This rainfall resulted in instances of flash flooding and river flooding across the area.

An EF-0 tornado, with maximum estimated winds of 85 mph, moved across Cedar Point Pier. The pier suffered damage to some railings and light poles. A large metal storage unit was lifted and moved ten feet, heavily damaging the structure. A utility pole was also knocked over. A 2x4 board was launched through the window of a pickup truck. The occupant of the truck suffered minor injuries. The end point is an estimation as the tornado could have continued to the north. However, given this area is marsh, the survey team was not able to find a definitive end point.

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 06:40 UTC and running to 15:08 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:55 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.

Fairhope (CQF), 30 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Mobile radar (KMOB), 42 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 08:15 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

11 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.