EF2 tornado, Selma Selfield Arpt to Burnsville, 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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

March 17, 2021

Touchdown

12:32 PM CDT (17:32 UTC)

Lifted

12:45 PM CDT (17:45 UTC)

On the ground

13 minutes

Path length

5.1 miles (8.2 km)

Path width

1,000 yards (914 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

2

County

Dallas County

Touchdown point

32.424, -86.954

Lift-off point

32.477, -86.895

Record number

2103171132-01

24 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BMX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 115 mph.

• Appears to be unanchored but car moved/rolled 30 feet.
• Large trees snapped at this homestead. Home also suffered structural damage with minor roof damage and also broken windows. One person survived in a vehicle in the yard barely avoiding a falling tree.
• two occupants inside, crawled out with minor injuries
• trees snapped/power poles also taken down

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

An active southern jet stream set-up across the southern United States during the middle of March. Several short-wave troughs became negatively tilted as each one traversed across Texas and towards Alabama. This resulted in a single hail event one Monday, March 15, and significant tornado outbreak on Wednesday, March 17. Many supercells began to develop across Central Alabama by midday Wednesday and continued into the evening hours before a squall line moved through the state. Sufficient instability and strong wind shear produced conditions favorable for tornadoes to develop. The event consisted of twenty-one tornadoes in the NWS Birmingham forecast area.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in northeastern Dallas County and determined that it was consistent with an EF2 tornado, with maximum winds near 115 mph. The tornado first touched down near Water Avenue just south of State Road 14, initially producing minor tree damage. The tornado quickly intensified snapping and uprooting large stands of hardwood trees as it moved into the Burnsville community. Near State Road 14 and County Road 871, a well built home sustained structural damage including the loss of a carport, roof damage, broken windows, and partial loss of one wall structure. An unanchored manufactured home next door was completely destroyed with the remaining contents blown across the road and scattered over 100 yards. A vehicle at this residence was rolled and sustained damage. The tornado continued to move rather slowly off to the northeast causing additional trees to fall. Several additional homes along the path sustained structural damage of mainly roof uplift and loss of shingles. Another manufactured home with some anchoring was rolled and blown apart on the north side of State Road 14. There were two occupants inside the home who were sheltering. They survived and crawled out with minor injuries. Farther northeast along State Road 14, a two story home sustained structural damage along with additional damage from falling trees. They were very large hardwood trees snapped near the base. A motorist trying to evade the tornado attempted to take shelter here and narrowly missed a large falling tree. At this point the tornado was likely at its widest reaching nearly 1000 yards. The tornado crossed State Road 14 moving into a mostly forested area producing significant tree damage before crossing County Road 261. Here a wide swath of trees and power lines were downed. The tornado finally weakened and lifted before reaching County Road 880.

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

19 minutes of warning. NWS BMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 17:13 UTC, 19 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 18:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 16:36 UTC and running to 23:48 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 16:06 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 Birmingham radar (KBMX), 82 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:29 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.