EF2 tornado, Gainestown, Alabama, April 15, 2011

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 mphthis tornado

   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 mph

   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

EF2

Date

April 15, 2011

Touchdown

9:20 PM CDT (02:20 UTC)

Lifted

9:22 PM CDT (02:22 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.6 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$145,000

County

Clarke County

Touchdown point

31.480, -87.684

Lift-off point

31.482, -87.678

Record number

1104152020-01

9 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MOB, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 130 mph.

• Home was lifted and rolled 80 yards and disintegrated. Was a direct hit by center of the vortex.
• Home was moved 2 feet to the south off cinder block pier foundation.
• Approximately 30 percent of roof removed on northwest side.
• Mobile home was moved 3 feet to the north off cinder block pier foundation. Several sections of the roof was removed on the south side of home. Several windows were blown out and unit seperated at central joint.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

Numerous supercell thunderstorms developed in the late morning through the evening hours across Mississippi and Alabama. A series of long track tornadic supercell thunderstorms moved out of southeast Mississippi in the late morning, and crossed southwest Alabama in the late morning through the afternoon and evening hours. In southwest Alabama, the tornadoes missed the larger populated towns and communities, but did produce significant damage to numerous homes in rural areas. Several injuries were reported with 3 fatalities in Deer Park, Alabama (Washington County) from an EF-3 tornado during the early evening hours. Widespread damage to timber along several 200 to 600 yard-wide tornado paths resulted in significant losses to the timber industry. The Alabama Forestry Commission estimated timber losses in southwest Alabama to be near 7.3 million dollars.

The tornado touched down taking a large section of roof off of a wood frame single story home near the center of circulation, pulling a single-wide mobile home off of its foundation on the north side of the circulation, and lifting off the roof of a nearby double-wide mobile home on the south side of the circulation. The tornado circulation quickly widened to 200 yards and strengthened, rolling another single-wide mobile home 60 yards then causing it to disintegrate as it hit a large tree. The mobile home's bent undercarriage was left about 60 yards to the left of the tornado path. The tornado continued to the east and quickly lifted in a pine forest.

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

30 minutes of warning. NWS MOB issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:50 UTC, 30 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 00:48 UTC and running to 04:42 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 00:58 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.

Evergreen (GZH), 61 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Mobile radar (KMOB), 104 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:21 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 2011 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

74 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 75 of them

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.