EF3 Tornado — Bibb, Alabama

2011-04-27 · near Mertz, Bibb, Alabama

Event narrative

A tornado touched down in southwestern Greene County near Tishabee, and moved northeast through central Hale and Bibb Counties, before it lifted near Marvel in far northeast Bibb County. The tornado moved into the Talladega National Forest near Ingram and crossed into Bibb County north of Mertz. The tornado tracked northeastward where it caused significant tree damage in the national forest. The tornado moved through Eoline and caused significant structural damage consistent with an EF3 rating and winds of 145 mph. Numerous mobile homes and single family homes sustained minor to major damage. A dozen mobile homes and single family homes were destroyed. In addition, the Eoline Fire Dept and another business were destroyed. One fatality occurred in a vehicle near the fire dept. At least 10 other injuries were noted. The tornado continued northeast and crossed AL Hwy 5, south of West Blocton where it weakened slightly to an EF2 with winds of 125 mph. Several mobile homes and single family homes sustained major damage or were destroyed near CR 26. Along the path, thousands of trees were downed. The tornado continued to weaken and lifted just northeast of Marvel.

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 → (32.9132, -87.4205)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 314799. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.