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EF1 tornado in Lamar County, Alabama

Tornado April 28, 2014 · Lamar County, Alabama

EF1
Rating
16.4 mi
Whole path
500 yd
Path width
$1.2M
Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Lowndes County, Mississippi → Lowndes County, Mississippi → Lamar County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 500 yards (0.28 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 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 originally touched down in Lowndes County, Mississippi, 3.2 miles south southeast of Steens and moved northeast, crossing into Alabama along State Road 96 in Lamar County. The tornado moved through the Lacey Brooke Community, where several well-built homes sustained minor roof and exterior damage. As the tornado tracked nearly parallel to State Road 96, dozens of trees were snapped or uprooted. The tornado took a turn to the north, crossing Luxapallilia Creek, strengthening to winds of 100mph, and tracking parallel to Fernbank Road. It continue snapping trees until it dissipated near the intersection of Fernbank Road and Mud Creek Road, where only small limbs were damaged.

The wider storm

A large scale severe weather event began Saturday, April 26 and ended Wednesday, April 30th, producing several waves of severe weather from the Central Plains eastward through the Deep South, and across a significant portion of the eastern United States. Strong and violent tornadoes, very large hail, flash flooding, and damaging straight line winds accompanied this dynamic storm system. The most tornadoes occurred across the Deep South as the system moved into Mississippi and Alabama on Monday, April 28th. Supercell thunderstorms developed during the afternoon over eastern Mississippi and northwest Alabama in the warm sector well ahead of a cold front. The activity slowly spread east and southeast overnight, with this wave of severe storms ending early Tuesday morning. Storms redeveloped late Tuesday afternoon and moved into Central Alabama. A large area of rainfall across the northern Gulf Coast limited the amount of instability across the area, and storms remained below severe limits. The last wave of severe weather occurred early Wednesday morning across the south as an isolated storm produced large hail, as the system finally pulled east of the area.

Began near Fernbank (33.5379, -88.2741).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 508042. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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