EF2 tornado, Magnolia to Flatwood, Alabama, March 26, 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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

March 26, 2023

Touchdown

8:33 PM CDT (01:33 UTC)

Lifted

8:40 PM CDT (01:40 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

5.8 miles (9.3 km)

Path width

750 yards (686 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Marengo and Wilcox counties

Touchdown point

32.182, -87.595

Lift-off point

32.162, -87.500

Record number

2303261933-01

15 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BMX and NWS MOB, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 93 mph.

• Several sporadic snapped trees (low to the ground) on the east side of Highway 14 in the woods.
• Several pine trees snapped in the woods on the east side of Highway 14.
• Sporadic pine trees snapped nearby; large branch fell on a gate.
• Numerous trees uprooted on the other side of the road with numerous trees blown down.

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

A multi-day severe weather event produced all modes of severe weather across Central Alabama. An upper low parked over the Midwest States and an upper ridge over the Florida Peninsula produced a deep layer of moisture and shear over Alabama. A slow moving surface cold front provided the focus for severe storms late Saturday night and continuing through Monday morning.

A stalled front over northern portions of the area combined with favorable wind shear and instability led to the development of severe thunderstorms. Two tornadoes developed along with several reports of large hail.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in southeast Marengo County and determined that it was consistent with an EF2 tornado, with maximum winds near 120 mph. A tornado touched down in an inaccessible area west of County Road 53 and moved along an east-southeast path. Numerous pine trees were snapped or uprooted along the road, with a metal property gate being crushed. From there, the tornado moved across County Road 14, where several more pine trees were uprooted and another gate was damaged before the tornado crossed into Wilcox County.

The tornado originated from eastern Marengo County (BMX CWA) and |continued east/southeast across a heavily wooded area that could |not be accessed by the survey team. The tornado eventually |approached Highway 5 and snapped numerous trees on both sides of |the Highway, with downed powerlines as well. The tornado could |have continued farther to the east; however, due to the heavily |wooded area it entered, the survey team could not assess any |further. High resolution satellite data will need to be analyzed |over the next several days to further refine the tornado track.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:51 UTC and running to 03:53 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 01:00 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 Birmingham radar (KBMX), 133 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:34 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

8 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.