EF0 tornado, Shorter, Alabama, January 4, 2023

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

January 4, 2023

Touchdown

3:23 AM CST (09:23 UTC)

Lifted

3:25 AM CST (09:25 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.7 miles (1.1 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Macon County

Touchdown point

32.384, -85.926

Lift-off point

32.391, -85.918

Record number

2301040323-01

22 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 110 mph.

• Truck rolled from somewhere?
• Baseball fences and scoreboard blown over
• fascia and shed damage and basketball goals down

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

A long-duration severe weather event occurred from the late morning hours of Tuesday, January 3rd to the early morning hours of Wednesday, January 4th. Several rounds of rain and thunderstorms impacted Central Alabama, producing tornadoes, damaging straight-line winds, quarter size hail, and flooding.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in western Macon County and determined that it was consistent with an EF0 tornado, with maximum winds near 70 mph. This brief tornado began in an inaccessible area southwest of Deer Run Trail, in the town of Shorter. It caused minor tree damage and damage to some outbuildings along Deer Run Trail, also knocking over a couple basketball goals. It quickly dissipated after crossing Deer Run Trail. A brief TDS was observed on MXX radar.

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

9 minutes of warning. NWS BMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 09:14 UTC, 9 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 09:58 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 08:59 UTC and running to 12:14 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 05:41 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.

Maxwell Afb/Montgom (MXF), 42 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), 21 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 09:25 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

16 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.