EF4 Tornado — Tallapoosa, Alabama

2011-04-27 · near Barnesville, Tallapoosa, Alabama

Event narrative

A tornado touched down in central Elmore County, north of Wetumpka, and moved northeast through central Tallapoosa and western Chambers Counties, before it lifted west northwest of Lafayette. The tornado crossed into Tallapoosa County near Stoney Ridge Rd, south of CR 34, and intensified to EF4 strength with winds of 170 mph. Damage was widespread and severe with several well built multi-story homes destroyed with no walls remaining on floors above basement level. The tornado continued at this strength but became narrower to nearly 400 yards wide as it crossed AL Hwy 49 south of Dadeville where it destroyed 2 homes and rolled a pick-up truck 120 yards. The tornado continued northeast and weakened to EF3 strength with winds of 155 mph. It crossed U.S. Hwy 280 just east of Dadeville where it produced significant damage to several homes and businesses, and caused one fatality. The tornado crossed into Chambers County west of Lafayette, south of CR 48.

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 → (32.7545, -85.8826)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 315334. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.