EF0 tornado, Ten Broeck, Alabama, March 15, 2024

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

March 15, 2024

Touchdown

6:53 AM CDT (11:53 UTC)

Lifted

6:54 AM CDT (11:54 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

77 yards (70 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

DeKalb County

Touchdown point

34.419, -85.976

Lift-off point

34.416, -85.977

Record number

2403150553-01

3 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS HUN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.

• Barn bent in from the west with debris placed to the east
• Chicken house roofing peeled from south to north. Roofing repaired before survey so photo relayed of damage via EMA
• Pole barn collapsed. Open walled shed for farming equipment toppled from north to south

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

A line of strong to severe thunderstorms dropped southeast through north Alabama during the early morning hours of the 15th. Several trees were knocked down due to the high winds, especially in Morgan County. One brief EF-0 tornado also occurred in DeKalb County.||Heavy rainfall from thunderstorms repeatedly moving across portions of North Central and Northwestern Madison County resulted in flash flooding and water rescues. People drove their cars into the water in the wee hours of the morning, resulting in stalled vehicles and emergency services needed to assist people back to dry land. Later that morning, runoff from the heavy rainfall caused area creeks to swell and impact nearby roads and residential areas in further downstream on Indian Creek tributaries.

This tornado touched down just south of County Road 72 in Tenbroeck, Alabama. There was damage to the roof of a chicken house where roof panels were peeled off the structure. The structure is oriented from west to east with the roof panel damage oriented south to north indicating winds opposite of the primary storm motion. A second area of damage was to a pole barn that was pushed over along with the roof breaking off of its 4x4 support beams. The roof materials were spread to the east northeast which would have been away from the storm motion. A third area of damage was to a small barn which had several roof panels blown off. The structure was also leaning from west to east. The tornado lifted just south of the small barn with no other damage found.

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

1 minute of warning. NWS HUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 11:52 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 12:15 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 09:43 UTC and running to 12:32 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 05:32 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 Northeast Alabama radar (KHTX), 58 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 11:55 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

6 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.