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EF0 tornado in Dekalb County, Alabama

Tornado April 3, 2015 · Dekalb County, Alabama

EF0

Rating

0.9 mi

Path length

30 yd

Path width

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 30 yards (0.02 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 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

A storm survey determined that a weak tornado touched down in the Fyffe, Alabama, community just east of the intersection of County road 545 and County Road 50. A few softwood trees were uprooted on the north side of the road. The tornado then moved east, crossing County Road 50 briefly, and uprooting some trees along County Road 536. The tornado then nearly paralleled County Road 50, destroying a large hay barn just east of County Road 528. The winds within the tornado along County Road 528 were estimated at around 85 mph with a narrow path of 30 yards. The tornado finally lifted west of County Road 539 after downing a few more trees.

The wider storm

A cold front intersecting a warm and unstable environment led to a broken band of thunderstorms during the late afternoon and evening hours, some of which were supercellular in nature. These storms moved east-southeast at 35-45 mph and exited northern Alabama between 930 and 10 pm CDT. One tornado was confirmed in DeKalb County with a few narrow swaths of wind damage reported in other portions of north Alabama.

Began near Grove Oak (34.4609, -86.0164).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

1 more tornado the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

EF1 Dekalb County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 573129. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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