EF1 tornado, Seven Hills, Alabama, March 9, 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

March 9, 2022

Touchdown

12:42 AM CST (06:42 UTC)

Lifted

12:45 AM CST (06:45 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

1.8 miles (2.8 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Mobile County

Touchdown point

30.610, -88.337

Lift-off point

30.630, -88.319

Record number

2203090042-01

6 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MOB, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.

• Several large hardwood tree branches down. Tornado appears to have touched down just to the southwest on other side of lake.

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

A strong cold front moved into an increasing unstable airmass over the Central Gulf Coast. Thunderstorms develop ahead of the frontal boundary and produced two tornadoes along with some wind damage. These tornadoes occurred during the early morning hours on March 9th.

The tornado touched down on Lakefront Ct where it produced very minor|tree damage, after which the tornado tracked off to the northeast.|The most significant structural damage occurred at a residence near|the intersection of Lakefront Dr and Dogwood Circle. Roof damage|and damage to multiple hardwood/softwood trees was noted. The tornado|then continued off to the northeast where it weakened slightly as it|crossed Scenic View Dr. It then continued northeast and increased in|strength as it approached Busby Rd where multiple softwood trees|were found snapped. The tornado lifted somewhere to the northeast of|Busby Rd before crossing Schmidt Ln and/or Johnson Rd where no damage|was found.||The team surveyed reports of damage on Repoll Rd, but only sporadic|minor wind damage was noted.

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

1 minute of warning. NWS MOB issued a tornado warning for this county at 06:41 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 07:08 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:55 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 Mobile radar (KMOB), 11 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 06:41 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

7 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.