EF4 Tornado — Walker, Alabama

2011-04-27 · near Marietta, Walker, Alabama

Event narrative

The sixth segment of this long track tornado entered southwest Walker County south of Blue Water Rd and moved northeast, where it eventually exited the northeast portion of the county east of Phillipstown 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 Walker County was around 0.3 miles (528 yds), the tornado widened as it approached the city of Cordova to a path width maximum of 0.6 mile (1056 yds). Shortly after it entered the county, the tornado knocked down a cell phone tower, caused minor roof damage to a mobile home and single family home, and completely destroyed a mobile home as it approached AL Hwy 69. As the storm continued northeast crossing Earnest Chapel Rd southeast of Oakman, several vehicles were rolled and a home was destroyed. This resulted in 1 fatality and 2 injuries. The tornado continued east northeast where it crossed CR 35 and AL Hwy 269 south of Parrish. The tornado weakened to an EF0 as it approached Corridor X/future Interstate 22, with only minor tree damage noted, before it strengthened significantly as it neared Cordova. A 0.6 mile wide swath of EF3 damage, with winds of 140 mph, was noted in downtown Cordova. Numerous homes and buildings sustained significant damage, if not complete destruction, resulting in 4 fatalities. The tornado continued northeastward across Burton Chapel Loop Road and crossed the Mulberry Fork of the Black Warrior River. As it crossed Mountain View Road, the tornado increased to a violent EF4 rating, with winds of 170 mph, and destroyed 2 mobile homes, as well as a single family home. One of the mobile home undercarriages was missing, having been tossed at least 500 yards. At this site, a small bulldozer was flipped over, a pickup truck was tossed 200 yards, and an International 4700 dump truck was tossed 50 yards and was destroyed upon landing. A 2 ton utility trailer from this location was found a mile away, with a 2.5 ft impact crater where it landed. As the tornado neared Old Hwy 78, it tossed two double wide mobile homes at least 100 yards, resulting in their complete destruction. Two fatalities occurred here. The tornado continued toward Sipsey, where an unanchored double wide mobile home was tossed 100 feet up a 50 foot embankment. Two fatalities occurred in this area. The tornado continued at a minimum of EF2 strength to the northeast where it destroyed several homes and tossed a double wide mobile home 100 ft, south of Campbellville. Along this path, significant tree damage was noted, as well as damage to or the complete destruction of numerous other single family homes and manufactured homes.

This was the second tornado to hit downtown Cordova on this day. At 418AM-436AM CST, a tornado with winds of 120 mph moved through the same area causing significant structural damage.

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 → (33.6448, -87.4238)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 309071. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.