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EF0 tornado in Lee County, Alabama

Tornado July 21, 2018 · Lee County, Alabama

EF0

Rating

5.7 mi

Path length

500 yd

Path width

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 500 yards (0.28 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

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in central Lee County and determined that it was consistent with an EF0 tornado, with maximum sustained winds near 85 mph. The tornado touched down in the city of Opelika near the intersection of South 3rd Street and Avenue D. The tornado tracked south and snapped or uprooted many trees before crossing Interstate 85. It then shifted towards the southeast as it crossed Chewacla Road, where it continued to snap or uproot trees. The tornado shifted back to a southerly track and crossed Highway 69 and Royal Drive. It then took a southwest track before lifting near Stringfellow Road.

The wider storm

A unseasonably cold core upper low was centered over the Ohio Valley States. Northwest flow aloft pushed several fast moving short wave troughs through East Alabama on July 21st and July 22nd. The combination of cold air aloft and moist low levels of the atmosphere produced very unstable conditions across east Alabama with CAPE values 4000-5000 J/kg each afternoon.

Began near Opelika (32.6488, -85.3701).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 776730. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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