EF1 Tornado — Pickens, Alabama

2011-04-27 · near Union Chapel, Pickens, Alabama

Event narrative

The first segment of this long track tornado initially touched down 5 miles northeast of Pickensville near Basinger Rd, north of AL Hwy 86. This tornado continued through portions of Tuscaloosa, Fayette, Walker, Cullman (See Storm Data for Huntsville), and Blount Counties, before it dissipated in Marshall (See Storm Data for Huntsville) County. While the average path width of this tornado in Pickens County was around 0.4 mile (704 yds), the maximum path width was 0.6 mile (1056 yds). The tornado crossed AL Hwy 17 and US Hwy 82, across the southern and western extents of the city of Reform. The storm strengthened to an EF1 rating with winds of 110 mph to the northeast of Reform. Along CR 49, several chicken houses were destroyed and grain feed bins were tossed up to 100 yards. As the tornado crossed AL Hwy 159, north of CR 49, several homes sustained roof damage and several outbuildings were destroyed. Numerous trees were snapped or uprooted along the path. The tornado moved northeast entering Tuscaloosa County south of Mid Walters Rd.

Wider weather episode

A powerful storm system crossed the Southeast United States on Wednesday, April 27, 2011, resulting in a large and deadly tornado outbreak. This epic event broke the record for number of tornadoes in a day for the state of Alabama, becoming the most significant tornado outbreak in the state's history.

Central Alabama had two rounds of severe weather that day. During the early morning hours, a Quasi-Linear Convective System quickly moved across the northern half of the National Weather Service, Birmingham county warning area. Straight line winds of 90 mph (78kts) or greater and 11 tornadoes lead to widespread damage and power outages. During the afternoon, long-lived supercell thunderstorms produced long-track, strong and violent tornadoes. Destruction and loss of life across many towns and communities was devastating.

The hardest hit areas included Shottsville and Hackleburg, both in Marion County, where winds of 160 mph and 210 mph respectively, caused unimagineable damage. Cordova, in Walker County, was hit twice; by a tornado along the Quasi-Linear Convective System during the early morning hours and again in the afternoon by a long-track EF4 tornado. A long track tornado moved across the city of Tuscaloosa and the western suburbs of Birmingham, resulting in the complete destruction of whole neighborhoods and numerous injuries and fatalities in those heavily populated areas. The same parent supercell produced another violent tornado in east Central Alabama as it tracked across St. Clair and Calhoun Counties, resulting in additional fatalities and incredible damage to a number of neighborhoods. Another violent EF4 tornado tracked across portions of Elmore and Tallapoosa Counties, including Lake Martin, destroying numerous homes and a large section of a mobile home park.

Most of the violent tornadoes from this day were captured on video by a number of people, including storm spotters and chasers, as well as numerous television news crews and remotely controlled web-enabled video cameras. This allowed unprecedented coverage and viewing of this historic event in real time from people worldwide.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.2506, -88.1814)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 307109. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.