EF1 tornado, Berlin to Baileyton, Alabama, March 17, 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

March 17, 2021

Touchdown

9:31 PM CDT (02:31 UTC)

Lifted

9:43 PM CDT (02:43 UTC)

On the ground

12 minutes

Path length

8.5 miles (13.6 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Cullman County

Touchdown point

34.200, -86.752

Lift-off point

34.276, -86.640

Record number

2103172031-01

25 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.

• Snapped tree ~200-300 yards off the main road.
• About a dozen snapped or sheared off trees.
• Multiple trees down on several single wide mobile homes.
• Start point of Fairview tornado.

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

Multiple rounds of thunderstorms and showers produced rain amounts of 3 to 5 inches across north Alabama. The heaviest rains were in northwest Alabama around the Quad Cities/Shoals area, and south of the Tennessee River, mainly along and east of the I-65 corridor. This resulted in numerous reports of flash flooding, particularly in the Shoals of northwest Alabama and Cullman County. The flooding prompted the closure of many roads and schools affected by the flooding. The thunderstorms came in multiple waves, one during early morning, another around Midday, with two final waves during the evening hours. Although the majority of severe weather this day occurred south of north Alabama, one EF-1 tornado tracked across northeast Cullman County during the evening hours.

A tornado began north of CR1605, between CR 1609 and CR 1610. Initially, branches were broken, but the tornado began snapping tree trunks as it crossed CR 747 and CR 1630. The tornado continued northeast and crossed CR 1635, uprooting multiple trees, pulling some roofing material from a site-built home, and damaging or destroying several sheds. From there, the tornado tracked along Alabama Highway 69, causing minor roof damage to a shed, snapping and uprooting several trees, and severely damaging a detached garage. The tornado continued north of Fairview along Welcome Drive and CR 1568, snapping trees and causing roof damage to large farm outbuildings. Roof and tree damage was most significant on CR 1568 and 1569 northeast of Fairview. A large portion of roofing was removed from a house, numerous trees were snapped and uprooted, several large agricultural sheds were demolished, and several chicken houses had roofing and siding removed. At this point, the tornado reached its peak width of approximately 50 yards and peak intensity of 100 mph. The final damage of note was observed along CR 1579 where a few more trees were snapped and the roof was peeled back from a large shed. Little additional damage was noted northeast of this location, so the end point is placed east of CR 1579 and south of CR 1570.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 00:10 UTC and running to 03:01 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 00:44 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.

Cullman (CMD), 15 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Northeast Alabama radar (KHTX), 95 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:28 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

32 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.