EF2 Tornado — Tuscaloosa, Alabama

2011-04-27 · near New Lexington, Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Event narrative

The fourth segment of this long track tornado entered Tuscaloosa County for the second time at CR 12, south of New Lexington. This tornado began in Pickens County, 5 miles northeast of Pickensville, and tracked through 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 this portion of Tuscaloosa County was around 0.5 mile (880 yds), the maximum path width was 0.75 mile (1320 yds). As the tornado crossed into Tuscaloosa County, minor tree damage of EF1 rating was noted. As the tornado crossed US Hwy 43, a mobile home was completely destroyed and the debris from the building was blown away. Northeast of US Hwy 43, a single family brick home suffered major roof loss as the tornado strengthened briefly to an EF2 rating, with winds of 120 mph. As the tornado continued northeastward across north Tuscaloosa County, minor tree damage occurred and at least 3 other homes sustained minor roof damage. The storm moved into southeastern Fayette County at Old Cheatam Rd, northwest of Sandtown.

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 → (33.5338, -87.6666)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 307315. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.