EF3 tornado, Havana to Phipps, 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 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF3

Date

March 25, 2021

Touchdown

12:16 PM CDT (17:16 UTC)

Lifted

12:30 PM CDT (17:30 UTC)

On the ground

14 minutes

Path length

11.1 miles (17.9 km)

Path width

1,400 yards (1280 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Hale and Tuscaloosa counties

Touchdown point

32.939, -87.575

Lift-off point

33.008, -87.403

Record number

2103251116-01

241 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BMX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 140 mph.

• widespread trees snapped and uprooted. Homes nearby damaged. Based on aerial imagery.
• Start point based on aerial imagery
• Wide swath of trees snapped and uprooted. Raised to EF-3 intensity based on volume and extent. Based on aerial imagery.
• widespread trees snapped and uprooted. based on aerial imagery

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

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.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in eastern northeast Hale County and determined that it was consistent with an EF3 tornado, with maximum winds near 140 mph.||The tornado initially began in a heavily wooded area northeast of Gabriel Creek Rd and tracked northeast. Radar imagery suggests the tornado quickly intensified. Farther downstream, significant timber damage was observed on County Rd 50, as well as National Forest Rd 706. This timber damage was quite impressive and very wide at many points with both hardwood and softwood trees snapped and uprooted. The magnitude of timber damage suggested winds of 140 mph. The tornado continued northeast causing further damage to a large swath of the Talladega National Forest in far northeast Hale County. The tornado crossed into southeast Tuscaloosa County very near the northwest tip of Bibb County.

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

40 minutes of warning. NWS BMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 16:36 UTC, 40 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 17:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 16:30 UTC and running to 00:47 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 High Risk, with a 0.30 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 16:29 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.

Tuscaloosa Municipal (TCL), 29 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Birmingham radar (KBMX), 71 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:13 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.