EF1 tornado, Pleasant Grove, Alabama, January 3, 2023

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

January 3, 2023

Touchdown

10:48 AM CST (16:48 UTC)

Lifted

10:50 AM CST (16:50 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.6 miles (1.0 km)

Path width

70 yards (64 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Franklin County

Touchdown point

34.538, -87.890

Lift-off point

34.544, -87.882

Record number

2301031048-01

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

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

A quasi-linear convective system progressed east through north Alabama and southern middle Tennessee from the late morning through the middle afternoon hours. A supercell within the line produced an EF-1 tornado in Franklin County northwest of Russellville. Damaging winds were reported at times along this line, knocking down trees, power lines, and producing damage to some homes. A second area of thunderstorms arrived during the mid to late evening hours in northwest Alabama, producing excessive rainfall and flooding in the Florence area.

A tornado touched down just west of Shady Grove Road. Damage to a small farm outbuilding and snapped cedar trees were observed. The tornado quickly moved through a residential farm and damaged the roof of a couple farm outbuildings, snapped more large branches, and downed more trees. The owner of the property managed to safely seek shelter in his tractor as the tornado quickly passed. More tree damage was noted to the northeast of the Shady Grove Road farm before it produced minor roof damage to chicken houses and a mobile home. The tornado appeared to have lifted near this location. Maximum winds were estimated at 88 mph, using snapped cedar trees as a damage indicator.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 15:15 UTC and running to 17:44 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:20 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 Columbus AFB radar (KGWX), 82 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 16:48 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 2023 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

25 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.