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EF0 tornado in Shelby County, Alabama

Tornado April 15, 2011 · Shelby County, Alabama

EF0
Rating
1.4 mi
Path length
50 yd
Path width
$15K
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 50 yards (0.03 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

A tornado touched down in Alabaster, at the Evangel Church on Thompson Road. The Evangel Church had some minor roof damage on its property. The tornado moved northeastward where it uprooted several trees along 8th Street SW and 6th Street SW. Several of those trees landed on homes. The tornado was rated an EF-0, with maximum winds of 70 mph. The tornado lifted near Highway 31 at the Alabaster City Hall.

The wider storm

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.

Began near Siluria (33.2380, -86.8363).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

26 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 310520. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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