EF1 tornado, Emco Listerhill Jct to Midway, Alabama, April 2, 2024

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

April 2, 2024

Touchdown

4:55 PM CDT (21:55 UTC)

Lifted

5:06 PM CDT (22:06 UTC)

On the ground

11 minutes

Path length

7.0 miles (11.2 km)

Path width

750 yards (686 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Colbert County

Touchdown point

34.692, -87.568

Lift-off point

34.738, -87.462

Record number

2404021555-01

30 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.

• Numberous tree limbs snapped, a few uproots
• A couple trees snapped as well as an uproot
• Tree uprooted fell on home
• Multiple uproots, a tree snapped

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

A broken line of strong to severe thunderstorms pushed east through north Alabama during the late afternoon and early evening hours. A couple of the thunderstorms showed supercell characteristics at times and produced an EF-1 tornado in eastern Colbert County in Leighton and an EF-0 tornado in central Limestone County just east of Athens.

Satellite imagery courtesy of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) depicted that a tornado touched down south of Old Highway 20 west of Sockwell Lane where a tree was uprooted. Ground surveys then tracked damage from the tornado northeast, with significant damage to a pole barn north of Highway 20 before snapping one power pole. Multiple trees were uprooted or snapped as the tornado tracked north of Leighton. Several of these trees fell on single family residences which also sustained loss of roof shingles. The tornado crossed County Line Road where a boat was lifted from its trailer and displaced north approximately 20 yards. Debris fallout was noted in an open field with some small tree twigs piercing the ground. Imagery indicated trees were uprooted south of Hatton and Bethel before the tornado lifted east of Shaw Road.

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 20:08 UTC and running to 01:30 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 20:01 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), 118 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:53 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 2024 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

68 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 69 of them

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.