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EF1 tornado in Barbour County, Alabama

Tornado January 21, 2017 · Barbour County, Alabama

EF1
Rating
37.3 mi
Whole path
400 yd
Path width

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 400 yards (0.23 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

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in Barbour County and determined that the damage was consistent with an EF0 tornado, with maximum sustained winds near 80 mph. This tornado began in Pike county about 5 miles north of the town of Goshen and traveled due east entering Barbour County near CR 130.

Damage across Barbour County was mainly uprooted trees. The tornado lifted just east of the town of Louisville off Carroway Road.

The wider storm

After over a week of near-record to record high temperatures, several upper-level disturbances followed by a strong upper-level low pressure system produced multiple rounds of severe weather across Central Alabama. This system was characterized by strong upper-level winds and very cold upper-level temperatures. The first round produced one brief, weak tornado in St. Clair County on the evening of January 19. The second round occurred on the morning of January 20 with 12 tornadoes across Marengo, Elmore, Macon, Lee, Pike, and Barbour Counties. A third round produced damaging straight line winds on the night of January 21, including in the Birmingham metro area where the Birmingham airport measured a 75 mph wind gust and in Oneonta where 80 mph straight-line winds caused significant damage. A brief tornado also occurred in Tuscaloosa County with this activity. Finally, a fourth round moved through during the day on January 22 with 3 tornadoes across Bullock and Lee Counties.

Began near Baxters (31.7889, -85.6644).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 676100. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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