EF3 Tornado — Tuscaloosa, Alabama

2011-04-15 · near Ralph, Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Event narrative

The second segment of this tornado crossed into Tuscaloosa County, approximately one half mile west of Lock 9 Road. The tornado touched down in Greene County, 3 miles southeast of Ralph. The tornado strengthened to an EF-3 rating, with maximum winds of 140 mph. Hundreds of trees were snapped or uprooted and a power transmission tower was severely damaged. As the tornado moved northeast into Taylorville, several homes and businesses received structural damage. The tornado lifted near Mayfair Drive, south of Veterans Memorial Parkway. The damage path in Tuscaloosa County had a maximum width of 500 yards.

Wider weather episode

A potent storm system, which wreaked havoc across the eastern half of the United States on April 14-16, produced a significant and historic tornado outbreak across Central Alabama on April 15. Forty tornadoes, 30 of which touched down in Central Alabama, occurred in the state. At the time, this set a new record for number of tornadoes within the state from one event. This record was broken on April 27, 2011.

A surface low developed across the Central Plains on Thursday, April 14, and strengthened as it moved into the mid-Mississippi River Valley. In response, surface dew points in the middle to upper 60s surged northward into Central Alabama and deep vertical wind shear increased, providing support for tornadic supercell development. A weakening line of thunderstorms moved into northwest Central Alabama early Friday morning. The southern end of this line intensified by mid day as it encountered a more unstable airmass. South of the line, supercells formed in Mississippi and tracked eastward into west Central Alabama. The entire system pushed east across the area over the course of about twelve hours, exiting east Central Alabama in the early morning hours on Saturday, April 16. In addition to the thirty tornadoes, the storm system produced widespread straight line wind damage and numerous large hail reports.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.0105, -87.7266)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 308491. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.