EF2 tornado in Madison County, Alabama

A tornado of EF-2 intensity with a peak wind speeds of 130 mph crossed portions of north central into northeast Madison County. The tornado began it's path just south of the Meridianville-Madison County Executive Airport off Meridianville Bottom Road where several trees were snapped. The tornado continued it's path eastward to Buckhorn High School before lifting at a farm across from the school on Winchester Road.

The tornado snapped power poles and lines along Moores Mill Road just north of Darwin Road. The tornado then intensified and destroyed a silo just east of that location before snapping trees and collapsing a barn on Macon Lane. The EF-2 tornado continued east causing significant tree damage and structural loss to residences along Rube Robinson Road and Morning Mist Drive. Most residences experienced roof damage, including loss of shingles and windows blown out. One home on Morning Mist Drive completely collapsed and was torn off it's foundation. The tornado was at it's peak width of about 220 yards at this point, before narrowing to 50 to 100 yards as it re-crossed Rube Robinson Road. The tornado collapsed a roof and barn in this area, then crossed fields for about 1 mile before reaching residents adjacent to Buckhorn High School on Shady Oak Lane ad Maysville Lane. A residence experienced significant damage, with brick walls buckled and a large portion of the roof torn off. A nearby cinder block wall of a garage collapsed.

The tornado then tracked through the Buckhorn High School campus at a width of up to 100 yards. A block building used by the ROTC students adjacent to the stadium collapsed. Several portions of the roof of the high school were torn off. Several cars in the parking lot were moved, twisted, and damaged with some windows blown out. The tornado then crossed Winchester Road and severely damaged a farmhouse, snapped and uprooted trees and strewn debris downwind across an adjacent cotton field where the tornado is believe to have lifted.

North Alabama experienced a portion of a much larger outbreak of tornadoes and severe weather from the Ohio Valley south through the Tennessee Valley to the Gulf Coast in advance of a strong cold front. The storms came in two waves. The first began during the mid-morning hours when two tornadic supercells developed across north central Alabama. The tornadoes (one EF-3 and one EF-2) tracked rapidly east-northeast across northeast Limestone and northern Madison Counties.

During the early afternoon, numerous thunderstorms re-erupted across north Alabama, including several supercells. Most of these storms were large hail producers, in one case up to softball sized. Three additional weak tornadoes were spawned in Limestone County. There were also reports of isolated wind damage. One last band of storms rolled through parts of north central and northeast Alabama during the mid evening hours as the cold front moved through.