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EF2 tornado in Sumter County, Alabama

Tornado November 16, 2011 · Sumter County, Alabama

EF2

Rating

1.5 mi

Path length

600 yd

Path width

Injury

$200K

Damage as recorded

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 600 yards (0.34 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF2 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF2 is considerable damage: roofs torn off well-built houses, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, consistent with estimated gusts of 111–135 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 Whitfield and moved to the northeast. Along its path, approximately 150 softwood trees were snapped, 50 hardwood trees were uprooted, and five outbuildings were damaged. Six homes and one double wide mobile home were also damaged. One home along County Road 42 was destroyed causing 1 injury.

The wider storm

Several waves of thunderstorms affected Central Alabama on Wednesday, November 16. The airmass ahead of a slow-moving, strong cold front became increasingly moist and unstable during the early morning hours. Rotating supercells within several broken lines of thunderstorms began producing damage just after sunrise in west Central Alabama. Isolated damage continued across the southern portion of the area through the early afternoon. In addition to damage across portions of Alabama, this storm system produced damage from Eastern Texas to the Atlantic Coast.

Began near Persimmon Grove (32.3633, -88.0894).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

EF2 Macon County EF1 Montgomery County EF0 Marengo County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 350974. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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