EF1 tornado, Franklin to Chehaw, Alabama, April 5, 2022

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

April 5, 2022

Touchdown

11:19 AM CDT (16:19 UTC)

Lifted

11:24 AM CDT (16:24 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

4.3 miles (6.8 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Macon County

Touchdown point

32.466, -85.805

Lift-off point

32.510, -85.755

Record number

2204051019-01

35 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BMX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 88 mph.

• Pines snapped in all directions from a previously cleared field

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

An upper-level disturbance moved across the Deep South in the early morning hours of April 5, 2022. This fostered the development of a surface low which moved across Central Mississippi and into North Alabama. Thunderstorms in the morning initially posed a threat of large hail and damaging winds. Later in the morning and into the afternoon, storms became more surface-based and a tornado threat resulted, mainly impacting the southern and southeastern portions of Central Alabama. On April 6th, a strong cold front moved through Alabama, producing another round of severe thunderstorms, but no tornadoes.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in northern Macon County and determined that it was consistent with an EF1 tornado, with maximum winds near 90 mph. The tornado touched down along Highway 49 in the Franklin community. |The tornado moved somewhat erratically northeastward, crossed largely harvested forested fields as it approached Macon County Road 36, breaking a few large tree limbs or causing a few trees to lean into others. The tornado continued across open fields before breaking large limbs along Chewacla Creek. After crossing the creek, the tornado crossed the site of the historic Tuskegee Army Airfield, intermittently snapping or uprooting numerous young softwood trees, and continued across Macon County Road 56. The tornado then seemed to intensify somewhat as it approached Alabama Highway 199, where 10 to 20 mature pine trees were snapped. The tornado quickly weakened and dissipated just east of Highway 199 in the vicinity of Bulger Creek.

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 11:52 UTC and running to 17:48 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 12:53 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.

Auburn-Opelika Apt (AUO), 35 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Maxwell AFB radar (KMXX), 6 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 16:20 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 2022 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

66 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 67 of them

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.