Tornadoes · United States · Alabama · 2010
EF1 tornado, Scott Station, Alabama, November 30, 2010
This EF1 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Perry County on November 30, 2010, touching down at 4:15 AM CST and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $25,000 of property damage.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
EF3136 to 165 mph
Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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.
The record
- Rating
- EF1
- Date
- November 30, 2010
- Touchdown
- 4:15 AM CST (10:15 UTC)
- Lifted
- 4:16 AM CST (10:16 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.1 miles (0.1 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $25,000
- County
- Perry County
- Touchdown point
- 32.627, -87.423
- Lift-off point
- 32.627, -87.422
- Record number
- 1011300415-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A powerful late fall storm system, and associated cold frontal passage through Alabama, brought widespread thunderstorms to the state. Some of the storms in Central Alabama produced damaging winds and tornadoes.
The tornado touched down briefly near CR-3, about a half mile south of CR-24. Several large pine trees were snapped off and several large hardwood trees were uprooted. The brick siding of one side of a home was heavily damaged, and a nearby storage shed was destroyed.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 09:49 UTC and running to 15:10 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 05:44 UTC | 09:49 UTC | Tornado Watch | BMX |
| 09:49 UTC | 15:10 UTC | Tornado Watch | BMX |
| 13:59 UTC | 14:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | BMX |
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 forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:58 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 air that afternoon
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.
Birmingham, AL (KBMX), 00:00Z
10.3 hours before the tornado, 86 km from the path. November 30, 2010.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -69451 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 517 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 59 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 41 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 540 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 634 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 1.6
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 2.5 K/km
Birmingham, AL (KBMX), 12:00Z
1.7 hours after it, 86 km from the path. November 30, 2010.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 444 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -1 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 137 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 484 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 58 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 42 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 385 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 473 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 1.2
- Supercell composite
- 4.2
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.2 K/km
The radar
The Birmingham radar (KBMX), 86 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 10:12 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10:15 UTC | TORNADO 1 | 6 W Marion | Perry, AL | SEVERAL LARGE PINE TREES SNAPPED AND SEVERAL LARGE HARDWOOD TREES UPROOTED. |
| 10:20 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 6 W Marion | Perry, AL | TREES DOWN AND ROOF DAMAGE TO SEVERAL HOMES ALONG AND NEAR CR 3, WEST OF MARION. POSSIBLE TORNADO. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2010 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of November 30, 2010
15 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| November 30 | 12:38 AM CST | EF0 | Saint Landry Parish, LA | 1.0 | 25 | $5,000 | ||
| November 30 | 12:46 AM CST | EF0 | Saint Landry Parish, LA | 1.3 | 25 | $5,000 | ||
| November 30 | 1:41 AM CST | EF1 | Lamar, AL | 1.4 | 150 | $145,000 | ||
| November 30 | 2:44 AM CST | EF2 | Smith, MS | 11.0 | 600 | $900,000 | ||
| November 30 | 2:50 AM CST | EF0 | Amite, MS | 4.8 | 25 | $5,000 | ||
| November 30 | 5:50 AM CST | EF0 | Jones, MS | 7.0 | 30 | $70,000 | ||
| November 30 | 7:09 AM CST | EF1 | Blount, AL | 1.7 | 150 | $26,000 | ||
| November 30 | 7:40 AM CST | EF0 | Hancock, MS | 0.1 | 25 | $1,000 | ||
| November 30 | 9:57 AM CST | EF1 | Autauga, AL | 5.8 | 150 | $58,000 | ||
| November 30 | 10:14 AM CST | EF0 | Clay, AL | 1.7 | 40 | $15,000 | ||
| November 30 | 10:23 AM CST | EF0 | Elmore, AL | 6.7 | 100 | $35,000 | ||
| November 30 | 3:38 PM EST | EF2 | Gwinnett, GA | 2.1 | 100 | $5.0 million | ||
| November 30 | 4:12 PM EST | EF0 | Butts, GA | 2.7 | 50 | $256,000 | ||
| November 30 | 7:45 PM EST | EF1 | Pickens, SC | 2.7 | 125 | $1.5 million | ||
| November 30 | 9:39 PM EST | EF1 | Laurens, SC | 2.0 | 200 | $50,000 |
What this means
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.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.