EF1 tornado, Union Hill to Ranburne, Alabama, May 20, 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

May 20, 2025

Touchdown

12:28 AM CDT (05:28 UTC)

Lifted

12:32 AM CDT (05:32 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

2.0 miles (3.2 km)

Path width

550 yards (503 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Cleburne County

Touchdown point

33.574, -85.362

Lift-off point

33.562, -85.332

Record number

2505202328-01

17 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BMX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 95 mph.

• Roofing from destroyed barn impacted the house. Missiles embedded into the house and the lawn.
• Barn contents on the roof, may have impacted the windward side of the house and tumbled over, or were deposited. Splatter on the south facing walls of the house. Garage door also compromised, was bent back into shape enough to open it.
• Barn debris thrown upstream of the barn. Grass/hay matted down from strong winds.
• Barn Debris thrown to the left of the path

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

A large, negatively-tilted trough over the central Plains ushered a cold front through the Central Alabama region late on May 20. Clusters of showers and thunderstorms developed into a broken line, moving across northern and eastern areas from Marion County to Cleburne County. A more concentrated area of wind damage occurred from eastern St. Clair to eastern Calhoun County, with numerous trees and power lines downed. An EF1 tornado was confirmed in the Saks area as well. Another EF1 tornado occurred in southeastern Cleburne County near Macedonia, near the Georgia state line. Early the next morning, a lone cell formed near the city of Montgomery and moved southeastward, producing another EF1 tornado in Bullock County around 4 AM CDT.

The tornado first touched down in a field just south of Cleburne|County Road (CR) 67 about 0.3 miles east of CR 49. The tornado|proceeded to destroy a half of an old barn, lofting and tossing|debris both upstream and downstream, as well as laterally. A|large portion of the barn roof landed on a home about 30 yards|downstream, with several missiles embedded in the roof as well as|the surrounding yard. There was notable splatter on the right|side of the house not facing the direction of the damaged barn. Direct wind damage to the home was minor, with a facia damage and|a partially collapsed garage door. Debris from the barn was also|found hundreds of yards away in an adjoining pasture. From|there, the tornado proceeded to the ESE snapping and uprooting|hardwood trees as it crossed CR 67, CR 611, and CR 95. From|there, the tornado weakened and caused only a few tree branches|to be damaged along CR 672 before it dissipated before reaching|CR 34.

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 23:46 UTC and running to 07:00 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:50 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 Atlanta radar (KFFC), 76 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:27 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

38 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.