EF0 tornado, Oak Hill, Alabama, May 25, 2022

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF0

Date

May 25, 2022

Touchdown

10:28 AM CDT (15:28 UTC)

Lifted

10:29 AM CDT (15:29 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.4 km)

Path width

65 yards (59 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

DeKalb County

Touchdown point

34.320, -86.039

Lift-off point

34.324, -86.039

Record number

2205250928-01

3 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS HUN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 73 mph.

• Roof damage to a farm outbuilding. Photos show entire roof removed, but this is due to ongoing repairs and is greater than the area damaged by the storm.
• Loss of roof in a chicken house. Building was open on the sides, making it easier for the tornado to loft the roof and create greater damage to the structure, so a wind estimate of 70 mph was used.
• Multiple trees uprooted along the end of the visible damage path. Due to waterlogged soils, have opted for the lowest wind speed option for this damage indicator.

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

A deepening are of low pressure associated with a storm system centered over eastern Nebraska was in place Wednesday morning on May 25th. A warm sector was in place over much of northern Alabama east of this feature. Two lines of thunderstorms developed in this warm sector. The first line of convection occurred in the morning hours over northeastern Alabama and produced one supercell that was short lived. This supercell storm produced a brief tornado touchdown east of the Painter community. More strong to severe storms occurred with the second round of convection that affected NW Alabama with damaging winds before weakening as it moved further east during the afternoon hours.

At 10:28 AM on Wednesday, May 25th 2022, an EF-0 tornado touched down near an open-walled garage and caused minor roof damage to the metal roofing panels. The tornado then tracked north-northwest, crossing CR-34 and directly hitting an open-walled chicken house. While most of the roof was damaged, the open walls allowed for the tornado to more easily loft portions of the roof and cause damage to metal roofing panels, so a lower-end estimate of 70 mph was given. This was the maximum width identifiable in the damage pattern for the weak tornado, as roughly two-thirds of the building had roof damage. The tornado then continued north-northwest, uprooting a few trees before rapidly lifting. Due to waterlogged soils from antecedent heavy rainfall, a low-end wind estimate of 73 mph was provided for the uprooted trees. Overall, the tornado lasted less than a minute as it tracked a quarter-mile from south-southeast to the north-northwest embedded within a QLCS.

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.

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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 12:46 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.

Albertville (BFZ), 22 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Northeast Alabama radar (KHTX), 68 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 15:28 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.