EF3 Tornado — Walker, Alabama

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

Event narrative

A tornado developed along a Quasi-Linear Convective System and touched down in rural southwestern Walker County, near the Fairview community. The tornado moved north northeast through Cordova before lifting near Lynns Park. The tornado touched down southwest of CR 6 and rapidly intensified to an EF3 rating with winds of 140 mph. Along Horseshoe Bend, a home was completely leveled, where it swept the foundation clean of the structure and debris. The tornado continued north northeast through the Richardson subdivision and across Pleasantville Road. It destroyed at least two single-wide manufactured homes. The tornado crossed US Hwy 269 where it weakened to an EF2 with winds of 120 mph and moved through the Aldridge community, where several homes were damaged, large trees were uprooted, and another single-wide manufactured home was tossed and obliterated. In Cordova, the tornado caused significant roof and parapet damage to brick buildings in the downtown area. The tornado crossed Old US Hwy 78 just east of the Mulberry Fork, where it snapped and uprooted trees and caused minor structural damage. The tornado continued northeast and dissipated south of County Road 22, less than a mile north of Old US Hwy 78. A second tornado, with winds of 140 mph, tracked through Cordova during the afternoon of the same day (between 1535 and 1605 CST) and caused more 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 → (33.5979, -87.3278)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 314602. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.