EF3 Tornado — Tuscaloosa, Alabama

2011-04-27 · near Holman, Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Event narrative

This tornado developed along a Quasi-Linear Convective System in far eastern Pickens County, 5.5 miles south southeast of Gordo and moved northeastward for 3.46 miles where it crossed into Tuscaloosa County just to the west of Holman, south of AL Hwy 140. This tornado continued for almost 19 miles in Tuscaloosa County before dissipating 2.5 miles east northeast of Samantha. As the tornado entered Tuscaloosa County and crossed US Hwy 82, its path widened to near 400 yds and it strengthened to an EF2 where it uprooted numerous trees. Northeast of Holman, the tornado strengthened to an EF3 with winds of 140 mph and caused significant damage to a home. It removed the roof and tossed it at least 200 yds. A 3500 pound trailer was thrown about 100 yds. The tornado continued northeast where it crossed AL Hwy 171 and US Hwy 43. Thousands of trees were snapped or uprooted and many homes sustained damage due to the fallen trees. In addition, at least 3 outbuildings sustained damage or were destroyed. The tornado tracked south of Samantha and dissipated along North Hagler Rd.

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 → (33.2794, -87.8385)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 311506. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.