EF2 Tornado — Choctaw, Alabama

2011-04-15 · near Land, Choctaw, Alabama

Event narrative

Tornado touched down just west of Highway 17 near the Red Springs area, and quickly intensified as it moved southeast of Butler towards the Tombigbee River. National Weather Service ground and aerial surveys shows a 600 yard wide path of trees snapped just above the ground or uprooted, with several homes either damaged or destroyed along the path across the Ararat Road, Dansby Road, and County Road 43. Several homes either had large sections of their roof removed with several mobile homes damaged or completely destroyed. The tornado continued east across the Tombigbee River into Marengo County Alabama. The Alabama Forestry Commission estimates timber losses along this tornado track to be near 4.3 million dollars. Property damages to homes are estimated to be near 1 million dollars.

Wider weather episode

Numerous supercell thunderstorms developed in the late morning through the evening hours across Mississippi and Alabama. A series of long track tornadic supercell thunderstorms moved out of southeast Mississippi in the late morning, and crossed southwest Alabama in the late morning through the afternoon and evening hours. In southwest Alabama, the tornadoes missed the larger populated towns and communities, but did produce significant damage to numerous homes in rural areas. Several injuries were reported with 3 fatalities in Deer Park, Alabama (Washington County) from an EF-3 tornado during the early evening hours. Widespread damage to timber along several 200 to 600 yard-wide tornado paths resulted in significant losses to the timber industry. The Alabama Forestry Commission estimated timber losses in southwest Alabama to be near 7.3 million dollars.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (32.0080, -88.3310)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 297829. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.