EF1 tornado, Kirbytown to Pleasant Hill, Alabama, April 6, 2025

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 6, 2025

Touchdown

1:33 AM CDT (06:33 UTC)

Lifted

1:39 AM CDT (06:39 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

1.0 miles (1.7 km)

Path width

175 yards (160 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$120,000

Counties

Marshall and Jackson counties

Touchdown point

34.534, -86.160

Lift-off point

34.536, -86.143

Record number

2504060033-02

19 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 104 mph.

• Start point of tornado began on the shore. There is no damage across the river. Tornado spun up, likely across the river moving into the area.
• Multiple softwood trees snapped along the waterline
• Tornado ended before this point. A couple of diseased trees had some branches down here, but tornado ended over the open waterway.

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

A line of severe thunderstorms roared east-northeast through north Alabama during the evening of the 5th into the early morning hours of the 6th. The line produced four tornadoes in north Alabama and several reports of wind damage, particularly in northwest Alabama. Also, flash flooding resulted in multiple water rescues including 10 hikers in Bankhead National Forest, a woman and two childeren swept off of a road in Lawrence County, and a woman in Cullman County.

A tornado developed in the waterway west of Holiday Shores Drive in Marshall County. The first-observed damage was a swath of softwood trees along the shore. Here, the|trees were snapped and uprooted. Just north of the trees, a single boat-slip house was destroyed. Further inland, numerous uprooted and snapped softwood trees were also|surveyed having fallen on a few homes.

The tornado traversed the peninsula and River Ridge crossing Holiday Shores Road and Shoreland Circle with very sporadic tree damage noted and other structural damage to homes on Shoreland Circle and Shoreland Road.

Very sporadic tree damage was noted as the tornado approached McCamey Road.

The tornado crossed McCamey Road with more sporadic tree damage and a bradford pear tree uprooted.

The tornado then proceeded into wooded area before reaching the Tennessee River-Lake Guntersville once again.

The tornado then crossed into Jackson County once again before reaching the shoreline where the tornado dissipated.

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

17 minutes of warning. NWS HUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 06:16 UTC, 17 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 06:34 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 05:45 UTC and running to 08:50 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:46 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.

Scottsburo (4A6), 22 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Northeast Alabama radar (KHTX), 44 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 06:33 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 2025 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

16 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.