EF0 tornado, Chewacla to Salem, Alabama, May 3, 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 3, 2025

Touchdown

7:21 PM CDT (00:21 UTC)

Lifted

7:26 PM CDT (00:26 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

3.8 miles (6.0 km)

Path width

175 yards (160 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Lee County

Touchdown point

32.604, -85.289

Lift-off point

32.602, -85.225

Record number

2505031821-01

14 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BMX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 76 mph.

• Several small softwoods downed.
• Several uproots in a loosely convergent pattern in this wooded area.
• Couple small pines uprooted northward.
• Very skinny trees or large limbs snapped.

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

Multiple days of thunderstorms across Central Alabama resulted in instances of wind damage and hail across the region from May 1-3. During the morning of May 1, a lightning strike in Pell City resulted in an injury. Wind damage and hail on May 2 was generally concentrated along and north of Interstate 59/20 as a line of severe thunderstorms moved from Mississippi to Georgia. A fatality and injury occurred the morning of May 3 near Red Mountain in Birmingham after a tree fell on power workers repairing damage from the previous evening. Wind damage and hail were less prevalent on the evening of May 3 as another line of thunderstorms moved southeastward across Central Alabama. However, a brief EF-0 tornado occurred in the Salem area of Lee County, causing minor tree damage.

A weak EF0 tornado embedded in a line of severe thunderstorms|occurred in the Salem area on the evening of May 3. The tornado|began over a wooded area east of Lee Road 151, northeast of the|National Center for Asphalt Technology (NCAT) Test Track. The |1start point was estimated using radar data as the area was |inaccessible by roads. Moving slightly south of due east, the tornado |passed just north of Lee Road 2119, where a few small trees or |limbs were snapped on Lee Road 187. By this point a Tornado |Debris Signature (TDS) was evident on radar. On Lee Road 749, a |few small pine trees had the tops snapped or limbs snapped off. |Little damage was noted across Highway 280 near Dudley Lumber, |but more significant tree damage was noted on property just |northwest of Wacoochee Elementary School. Numerous trees were |uprooted and limbs were snapped across the property, in line with |the TDS on radar. One tree limb fell on part of a home, causing |very little damage. Tree damage continued to just northeast of a |large pond, where the track ended. NWS Birmingham would like |to thank Lee County EMA for conducting this survey.

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 severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 22:36 UTC and running to 01:46 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 19:52 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 Maxwell AFB radar (KMXX), 50 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:20 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

7 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.