EF3 Tornado — Fayette, Alabama

2011-04-27 · near Alta, Fayette, Alabama

Event narrative

The fifth segment of this long track tornado entered Fayette County for the second time at CR 83, south of Boley Springs, and moved northeast where it exited Fayette County south of Blue Water Trace Rd . 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 Fayette County was around 0.5 mile (880 yds), the tornado maximum path width was 0.75 mile (1320 yds) as it entered the county. The tornado strengthened to an EF3 rating, with winds of 140 mph, as it crossed CR 83 in Fayette County, where a mobile home was completely destroyed, with the remaining debris thrown a considerable distance, which resulted in 2 fatalities. The tornado continued northeast, where it crossed Wilcutt Road and CR 46, where several additional mobile homes were completely destroyed and the debris thrown a considerable distance. This resulted in two additional fatalities. Along this path, two homes sustained complete roof loss or partial roof loss, respectively. In addition, several cars were thrown and destroyed, and a building sustained extensive damage to the exterior brick veneer. The tornado caused considerable damage to trees, completely debarked trees with only stubs of largest branches as it continued northeast toward the Walker County line.

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 → (33.6050, -87.5102)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 307342. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.