EF2 Tornado — Lauderdale, Alabama

2023-03-24 · near Florence, Lauderdale, Alabama

Event narrative

The tornado touched down near the intersection of Sweetwater Avenue and Huntsville Road in southeast Florence. The tornado nearly paralleled Sweetwater Creek as it tracked northward. Along Sweetwater Creek and Sweetwater Avenue, numerous trees were uprooted and snapped and structures and small outbuildings were damaged. There was also minor room damage to a single family home. As the tornado crossed Highway 43, more trees and minor structure damage was observed near Mall Road and north of Hough Road. The tornado approached Hunter Ridge subdivision northeast of Florence and south of Saint Florian along County Road 61, removing part of a roof at the back of the neighborhood. The tornado then moved northeast into the Plantation Springs subdivision, damaging roofs to two homes on the southeastern corner of Plantation Springs Drive around the Blackberry Trail Golf Course. The tornado then strengthened to its strongest and widest point between Cottonwood Trail and Karley Lane, producing the most widespread structure damage along its path here. About half of the roofs of several homes were destroyed, and the backside of the homes sustained severe damage as the tornado moved through the area. At this point, the tornado was about 100 yards wide, and produced peak winds of 120 mph at this location. The last house on the northeast corner of Plantation Springs Drive sustained the worst damage near the golf course, with more than half the roof destroyed and two rooms with walls collapsed at this location. The tornado lifted shortly after this point.

Wider weather episode

A severe line of thunderstorms rolled through north Alabama during the late evening hours of the 24th into the early morning hours of the 25th, producing 7 tornadoes. An embedded supercell thunderstorm with a history of tornadoes in Mississippi moved east-northeast across northwest Alabama, yielding another two tornadoes in Lauderdale County in Florence and near Anderson. Associated with this line, multiple narrow swaths of intense damaging winds of 60 to 90 mph occurred across the Shoals metro area, including Sheffield, Tuscumbia, Muscle Shoals and Florence. The winds caused widespread power outages, damaged numerous structures, and toppled or snapped numerous trees, power poles and power lines. A few trees and power poles were dropped onto residences and vehicles, either destroying or heavily damaging them. Roof damages were reported at many locations as well. All told, an estimated #### million in damages occurred, the majority in northwest Alabama in Colbert and Lauderdale Counties. As the line continued east, additional tornadoes were spawned in Lawrence, Morgan, Jackson and DeKalb Counties.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (34.8086, -87.6553)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1086258. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.