EF0 tornado, Olalee to Avery, Alabama, May 25, 2025

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

May 25, 2025

Touchdown

4:34 PM CDT (21:34 UTC)

Lifted

4:44 PM CDT (21:44 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

8.1 miles (13.0 km)

Path width

140 yards (128 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Jackson County

Touchdown point

34.908, -85.967

Lift-off point

34.870, -85.838

Record number

2505251534-01

10 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.

• Can call trunk snapped or large limbs, no other damage noted
• Tree uprooted and appears to be fresh but no other damage noted
• Large tree uprooted next to small creek but no other damage to house nearby
• Tree snapped but cleared off road with no more details

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

An upper level disturbance moving east into northern Alabama and southern middle Tennessee (north of a slow moving frontal boundary edge north from central Alabama) interacted with an unstable atmosphere during the early to mid afternoon hours to produce a line of strong to severe thunderstorms that exited in Georgia between 6 and 7 PM. This line of storms produced damaging winds in portions of northern Alabama and a tornado in the Cave Springs area of Jackson county.||An additional line of strong to severe thunderstorms developed as the frontal boundary moved north into northern Alabama later in the evening before exiting the area after midnight. This line of storms produced sporadic damaging winds, particularly in Lawrence county and a few instances of large hail. Some aerial flooding occurred as well in portions of DeKalb county.

The initial damage was observed in the Cave Springs area near County Road (CR) 54, where large tree branches were downed as the tornado tracked east-southeast. Additional indicators of tree damage were found near the intersection of CR 53 and CR 147. The tornado then progressed along Highway 117 into Stevenson, where trees were observed to be uprooted or had large branches broken. As the primary damage indicators were related to trees, and considering the above-average rainfall experienced in May, the estimated wind speeds were slightly reduced to account for highly saturated ground conditions.

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

40 minutes of warning. NWS HUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:54 UTC, 40 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:34 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 20:26 UTC and running to 04:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:53 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), 17 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:32 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

8 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.