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EF1 tornado in Calhoun County, Alabama

Tornado May 20, 2025 · Calhoun County, Alabama

EF1
Rating
3.5 mi
Path length
1,000 yd
Path width
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 1,000 yards (0.57 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

This tornado appears to have touched down somewhere in the

restricted area of the Pelham Range based on radar. The first

accessible damage occurred along Calhoun County Road (CR)

109 (Bynum Leatherwood Rd) just north of the Lloyds Chapel

Cemetery, where several large trees were uprooted. The tornado

continued to the east-southeast crossing Reaves Road and Gardendale Drive,

where swaths of trees were snapped or uprooted, with trees

falling on a manufactured home and a site built home in the area. Several pine trees were still blocking traffic across CR

46 (Parkwood Rd) near the intersection with McCulley Ln. The

tornado continued east-southeast roughly along CR 46, before crossing

Alexandria Rd, where several streets were blocked with uprooted

hardwood trees. As the tornado approached US Highway 431,

significant damage continued but became more sparse and sporadic

as the tornado appeared to end and transition to a thunderstorm

wind event.

The wider storm

A large, negatively-tilted trough over the central Plains ushered a cold front through the Central Alabama region late on May 20. Clusters of showers and thunderstorms developed into a broken line, moving across northern and eastern areas from Marion County to Cleburne County. A more concentrated area of wind damage occurred from eastern St. Clair to eastern Calhoun County, with numerous trees and power lines downed. An EF1 tornado was confirmed in the Saks area as well. Another EF1 tornado occurred in southeastern Cleburne County near Macedonia, near the Georgia state line. Early the next morning, a lone cell formed near the city of Montgomery and moved southeastward, producing another EF1 tornado in Bullock County around 4 AM CDT.

Began near Saks (33.6952, -85.8854).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1254041. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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