EF3 tornado, Bankhead, Alabama, April 24, 2010

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mph

   Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

4. EF3136 to 165 mphthis tornado

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. EF5over 200 mph

   Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

7. Unrated

   The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

Rating

EF3

Date

April 24, 2010

Touchdown

11:25 PM CDT (04:25 UTC)

Lifted

11:46 PM CDT (04:46 UTC)

On the ground

21 minutes

Path length

14.3 miles (23.1 km)

Path width

440 yards (402 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$2.7 million

Counties

DeKalb and Chattooga counties

Touchdown point

34.526, -85.589

Lift-off point

34.568, -85.343

Record number

1004242225-01

Four damaging tornadoes tore tracks through north central and northeast Alabama during the evening and overnight hours of the 24th. These tornadoes were part of a larger regional tornado outbreak across the lower Mississippi and Tennessee Valleys. The tornadoes were associated with three separate long track supercell thunderstorms that thrived upon a very unstable and high shear environment. One of the longer track tornadoes tore through several successive communities with up to EF-3 strength in Marshall and DeKalb Counties, including the towns of Albertville, Geraldine and Pine Ridge, lifting just before reaching Fort Payne. A tornado from the same storm then touched down again in the Mentone area before crossing the Georgia state line. Another supercell produced yet another tornado southwest of Collinsville, tracking just a few miles south of the earlier damaging tornado. This tornado reached EF-4 strength when it completely leveled the McNutt United Methodist Church on County Road 55. Fortunately, no fatalities occurred with these particular tornadoes, but damages were severe.||In Marshall County, total costs from the tornado had exceeded $14 million, which included 1032 homes experiencing at least some damage, and 93 homes destroyed. In DeKalb County, damage losses were still being tallied. Debris removal costs alone have exceeded $3 million.

The same supercell which produced the tornado in from Blount into Marshall and DeKalb Counties produced a second tornado around 11:25 PM CDT. This tornado touched down 4 miles south southwest of Mentone, near Desoto State Park. The tornado reached EF-3 intensity with speeds up to 140 mph destroying several single wide manufactured homes. The tornado also snapped and uprooted numerous large trees. Significant damage was seen along it's path to the Alabama/Georgia state line. The hardest hit areas were between CR 117 and CR 106, just to the south southeast of Mentone. The most significant damage occurred to a trailer park (Morning Glory Court) where several single wide manufactured homes were completely destroyed. Numerous large trees were also snapped or uprooted. The tornado continued moving northeast and crossed into Chattooga county (Northwest Georgia) around 11:34 PM CDT. Additional damage occurred as it traveled another 8 miles into northern Chattooga county.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

13 minutes of warning. NWS HUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 04:12 UTC, 13 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:39 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 00:15 UTC and running to 05:46 UTC.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 01:01 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

Fort_payne (4A9), 25 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Northeast Alabama radar (KHTX), 71 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:25 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2010 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

38 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.