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EF1 tornado in Jackson County, Alabama

Tornado March 25, 2023 · Jackson County, Alabama

EF1
Rating
8.5 mi
Whole path
250 yd
Path width
$5.5M
Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Jackson County → Dekalb County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 250 yards (0.14 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

Aerial surveillance provided by Jackson County Emergency Management Agency (EMA), supplemented by a ground survey of National Weather Service personnel and DeKalb County EMA confirmed an EF-1 tornado near the Flat Rock area.

The tornado touched down southwest of CR 81, north of Flat Rock near Fabius Poultry. Multiple chicken houses sustained roof damage at this location. The tornado tracked east toward CR 81 where numerous softwood trees were uprooted. The final damage point was east of Highway 117 where a possible ground scar was noted. Damage was then reported along and between Highway 71 and CR 326 to the county line. Uprooted

trees and minor structure damage was observed in this location.

The wider storm

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.

Began near Sulphur Spgs (34.7856, -85.7393).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

6 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1086284. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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