EF0 tornado, Spring Hill, Alabama, March 12, 2026

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, as surveyed

EF0, preliminary

Date

March 12, 2026

Touchdown

3:03 AM CDT (08:03 UTC)

Lifted

3:04 AM CDT (08:04 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Pike County

Touchdown point

31.706, -85.960

Lift-off point

31.708, -85.956

Highest wind the damage implies

85 mph

Surveyed by

NWS BMX

The office's name for it

Spring Hill Tornado

Survey last edited

March 17, 2026

Record number

None yet. SPC numbers 2026 in the spring of 2027.

A localized area of storm damage was surveyed by NWS Birmingham Meteorologists along Highway 87 to the north of Spring Hill. The damage in this area was consistent with an EF0 tornado with several Housing Authority duplexes sustaining significant roof damage on the west side of 87. The key indicator of a tornado was insulation splattering on the eastern wall of one of the buildings along with a weak debris signature noted on KEOX radar. Debris was also strewn across a field on the southern side of the circulation. The tornado continued east across Highway 87 where several more duplexes sustained minor roof damage with a couple of uprooted trees noted in the area as well. The tornado was rather short-lived with a path length of roughly one-quarter mile with no notable areas of damage before or after the Housing Authority property.

Written by NWS BMX in the NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit. A survey is revised as better evidence arrives.

3 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 85 mph.

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

A line of thunderstorms ahead of a cold front moved across Central Alabama from late on March 11 into the early morning hours of March 12. After initially only producing a few areas of wind damage, the line quickly intensified east of I-65. Around 1 AM CDT, several trees were downed across Coosa and Tallapoosa counties. Scattered tree damage was also reported in Montgomery before activity quikcly ramped up after 2:30 AM CDT. Multiple areas of rotation within the line produced three EF-0 tornadoes across Pike, Barbour, and Russell counties, along with numerous instances of tree and structural damage from straight-line wind in these three counties along with Bullock and Lee. The line exited into Georgia by 4:30 AM CDT.

A localized area of storm damage was surveyed by NWS Birmingham Meteorologists along Highway 87 to the north of Spring Hill. The damage in this area was consistent with an EF0 tornado, with several Housing Authority duplexes sustaining significant roof damage on the west side of 87. The key indicator of a tornado was insulation splattering on the eastern wall of one of the buildings, along with a weak debris signature noted on KEOX radar. Debris was also strewn across a field on the southern side of the circulation. The tornado continued east across Highway 87 where several more duplexes sustained minor roof damage with a couple of uprooted trees noted in the area as well. The tornado was rather short-lived with a path length of roughly one-quarter mile, and no notable areas of damage before or after the Housing Authority property.

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

0 minutes of warning. NWS BMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 08:03 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 08:25 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 04:32 UTC and running to 08:53 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.

Troy Municipal (TOI), 18 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Ft Rucker radar (KEOX), 55 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 08:01 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 2026 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

23 more have been surveyed in the United States that day, so far.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. A survey can be revised, so the rating, the path and the casualties can all still change.

NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit, the record the survey teams file from the damage, and NOAA Storm Prediction Center storm reports. Neither is the official database for 2026, which SPC publishes in the spring of 2027.