EF2 tornado, Lavaca to Half Acre, Alabama, March 25, 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 25, 2021

Touchdown

7:13 PM CDT (00:13 UTC)

Lifted

7:26 PM CDT (00:26 UTC)

On the ground

13 minutes

Path length

9.6 miles (15.5 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Choctaw and Marengo counties

Touchdown point

32.124, -88.044

Lift-off point

32.183, -87.896

Record number

2103251813-01

21 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BMX and NWS MOB, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 134 mph.

• Single family home was shifted approximately 6 feet eastward and a large section of the roofing was removed from the north side of the home. A small shed was destroyed and a few trees were uprooted.
• Shed destroyed along with an uprooted tree. Path width approximately 100 yards.
• Numerous pine trees snapped and uprooted with a path width of approximately 100 yards.
• Large swath of pine trees all snapped near the bases. Area of snapped trees approximately 225 yards wide.

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

Another in a series of powerful storm systems moved across the region during the day and through the evening. A very unstable airmass developed across the area. This system produced a tornado outbreak just north of the area, however one tornado developed in Choctaw and caused damage.

A potent storm system affected Central Alabama on Thursday, March 25th. A highly-sheared environment combined with increasing instability produced numerous tornadic thunderstorms. Severe parameters were supportive of significant and long-track supercells, prompting the issuance of a rare High Risk Convective Outlook from the Storm Prediction Center for portions of Central Alabama.||A total of 10 tornado tracks were surveyed in Central Alabama. This included 4 EF3 tornadoes, 3 EF2 tornadoes, and 3 EF1 tornadoes. Damage was significant along the paths of the most intense tornadoes and, unfortunately, injuries and fatalities occurred. |Some storms were cyclic, meaning multiple tornadoes were produced by the same storm. The most impressive tornado of the event was the long-track tornado that traveled nearly 80 miles from Hale County to Shelby County. This ranked as the seventh longest single tornado track in the state of Alabama.

The tornado first touched down just west of the Tombigbee River|and just south of Highway 10 in far eastern Choctaw county, AL. The tornado|intensified rapidly upon touchdown and heavily damaged a single family home.|The home was shifted nearly 6 feet off of the foundation. In addition, a|large section of the roof was removed and a small shed adjacent|to the home was destroyed. A few large trees were also uprooted and a power|pole in front of the home was snapped. This tornado continued east across|the river into Marengo county, AL, which is covered by the National Weather|Service office in Birmingham, AL.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in southwest Marengo County and determined that it was consistent with an EF2 tornado, with maximum winds near 115 mph.||The tornado crossed the Tombigbee River from Choctaw County just south of Highway 10. It produced significant damage on South Riverview Lane, just south of Alabama Highway 10. In this area, an older single wide mobile home was destroyed with the frame tossed at least 50 yards to the east. In addition, a large storage building was also destroyed. Significant tree damage was noted in the area with several hardwood and softwoods snapped and uprooted. In this area, the tornado is estimated to have been at low end EF2 intensity with winds around 115 mph. The tornado continued northeast and crossed Highway 10, producing substantial tree damage and also heavily damaging one barn and destroying another. The tornado continued to produce substantial tree damage as it crossed Highway 69. As the tornado moved east of Highway 69, the road network did not allow the survey team to assess the damage over a large forested area. However, damage was noted along Highway 17, north of Beaver Creek Road. It is not known how much farther to the northeast the tornado continued due to no road access, but the tornado did not reach Highway 43.

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

13 minutes of warning. NWS MOB issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:00 UTC, 13 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 16:27 UTC and running to 00:42 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 22:26 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.

Demopolis (DYA), 35 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Birmingham radar (KBMX), 160 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:15 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

19 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.