EF1 Tornado — Tallapoosa, Alabama

2021-03-25 · near Goldville, Tallapoosa, Alabama

Event narrative

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in rural northern Tallapoosa County and determined it was consistent with an EF1 tornado with maximum winds near 95 mph. The tornado first touched down in a remote area just east of Goldville, starting out very narrow but producing significant areas of uprooted trees and a distinct debris signature as it passed over harvested and unharvested forests. The tornado crossed Simpson Road before passing into Clay County.

Wider weather episode

A potent storm system affected Central Alabama on Thursday, March 25th. A highly-sheared environment combined with increasing instability produced numerous tornadic thunderstorms. Severe parameters were supportive of significant and long-track supercells, prompting the issuance of a rare High Risk Convective Outlook from the Storm Prediction Center for portions of Central Alabama.

A total of 10 tornado tracks were surveyed in Central Alabama. This included 4 EF3 tornadoes, 3 EF2 tornadoes, and 3 EF1 tornadoes. Damage was significant along the paths of the most intense tornadoes and, unfortunately, injuries and fatalities occurred.

Some storms were cyclic, meaning multiple tornadoes were produced by the same storm. The most impressive tornado of the event was the long-track tornado that traveled nearly 80 miles from Hale County to Shelby County. This ranked as the seventh longest single tornado track in the state of Alabama.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.0942, -85.7710)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 965724. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.