EF1 tornado, Sulphur Spgs, Alabama, March 25, 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

March 25, 2023

Touchdown

1:28 AM CDT (06:28 UTC)

Lifted

1:36 AM CDT (06:36 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

8.5 miles (13.7 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$5.5 million

Counties

Jackson and DeKalb counties

Touchdown point

34.786, -85.739

Lift-off point

34.794, -85.592

Record number

2303250028-01

12 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 90 mph.

• Minor roof damage to single family home & large softwood tree uprooted.

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

A severe line of thunderstorms rolled through north Alabama during the late evening hours of the 24th into the early morning hours of the 25th, producing 7 tornadoes. An embedded supercell thunderstorm with a history of tornadoes in Mississippi moved east-northeast across northwest Alabama, yielding another two tornadoes in Lauderdale County in Florence and near Anderson. Associated with this line, multiple narrow swaths of intense damaging winds of 60 to 90 mph occurred across the Shoals metro area, including Sheffield, Tuscumbia, Muscle Shoals and Florence. The winds caused widespread power outages, damaged numerous structures, and toppled or snapped numerous trees, power poles and power lines. A few trees and power poles were dropped onto residences and vehicles, either destroying or heavily damaging them. Roof damages were reported at many locations as well. All told, an estimated #### million in damages occurred, the majority in northwest Alabama in Colbert and Lauderdale Counties. As the line continued east, additional tornadoes were spawned in Lawrence, Morgan, Jackson and DeKalb Counties.

Aerial surveillance provided by Jackson County Emergency Management Agency (EMA), supplemented by a ground survey of National Weather Service personnel and DeKalb County EMA confirmed an EF-1 tornado near the Flat Rock area.||The tornado touched down southwest of CR 81, north of Flat Rock near Fabius Poultry. Multiple chicken houses sustained roof damage at this location. The tornado tracked east toward CR 81 where numerous softwood trees were uprooted. The final damage point was east of Highway 117 where a possible ground scar was noted. Damage was then reported along and between Highway 71 and CR 326 to the county line. Uprooted|trees and minor structure damage was observed in this location.

Aerial surveillance provided by Jackson County Emergency Management Agency (EMA), supplemented by a ground survey of National Weather Service personnel and DeKalb County EMA confirmed an EF-1 tornado near the Flat Rock area.||The tornado tracked from Jackson into DeKalb County where it caused minor roof damage to a single-family home and uprooted several trees. As it tracked east to Highway 75, power poles were tilted, and additional trees were uprooted before the tornado lifted just east of Highway 75.

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

20 minutes of warning. NWS HUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 06:08 UTC, 20 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 06:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 02:27 UTC and running to 07:22 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 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 Northeast Alabama radar (KHTX), 41 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 06:27 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

2 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.