EF2 tornado, Tysonville to Chehaw, Alabama, March 27, 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 27, 2023

Touchdown

2:41 AM CDT (07:41 UTC)

Lifted

3:06 AM CDT (08:06 UTC)

On the ground

25 minutes

Path length

15.4 miles (24.8 km)

Path width

1,450 yards (1326 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Macon County

Touchdown point

32.410, -86.008

Lift-off point

32.474, -85.756

Record number

2303270141-01

49 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BMX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 125 mph.

• Road blocked by downed trees
• Carport uplifted and destroyed. Small trees down in area.

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.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in northwest Macon County and determined that it was consistent with an EF2 tornado, with maximum winds near 125 mph. The tornado touched down in the area of Tysonville Road, with only sporadic tree limbs and small trees uprooted. Damage became more concentrated along County Road 138, where the attached carport of a house was ripped away and destroyed. Numerous trees, mostly pine, were uprooted along a path of several hundred yards. On County Road 40, the damage became more intense, with dozens of trees uprooted.|The top of a grain silo was blown off, with roofing material scattered southward, before the tornado reached the cotton gin in Milstead. Here, the main structure sustained significant damage, with failure of the roofing system and outer walls of the structure, earning the EF2 rating. Most of the inner walls remained standing, and two large buildings adjacent to the main structure only sustained comparatively minor roof and siding damage. Just east of the structures, significant tree damage was observed around a small lake. Along the road and railroad immediately south of the cotton gin, numerous concrete power poles were pulled down in a northward direction across the railroad tracks, and a pivot irrigation system was flipped in a large field. The tornado continued eastward, where the Auburn University E.V. Smith Research Center sustained damage to several buildings on the property, with one farm shed partially collapsing and roofing material blown northward across the road. Widespread tree damage continued along County Road 9 for around three miles, although most of the trees that were uprooted were pine trees. There was also occasional minor damage to roofing on homes, mostly caused by trees. Damage became much more sporadic as the tornado passed through the Franklin community, with only a few trees uprooted. There was a slight uptick of more concentrated tree damage on the east side of County Road 27 before the tornado dissipated.

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

2 minutes of warning. NWS BMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 07:39 UTC, 2 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 08:12 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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:52 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.

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.