EF2 tornado, Tunnell Spgs to Forest Home, 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

5:29 PM CDT (22:29 UTC)

Lifted

6:07 PM CDT (23:07 UTC)

On the ground

38 minutes

Path length

22.3 miles (35.8 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$390,000

Counties

Monroe and Butler counties

Touchdown point

31.720, -87.095

Lift-off point

31.899, -86.783

Record number

1104151629-01

17 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS MOB, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 155 mph.

• Entire roof of Amity Missionary Baptist Church was blown off.
• 2 white oak trees snapped. Looks like start of path towards Amity Missionary Baptist Church damage. Width less than 100 yards.
• Several trees down in 300 wide convergent path. Point taken from highway...so will need to offset point one quarter mile southeast.
• Bethlehem Baptist Church totally destroyed with roof completely removed and 2 exterior walls collapsed. Debris thrown towards CR 29. Across CR 29 numerous trees snapped mid-trunk. House across the road had significant shingle damage on southwest side.

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.

Tornado touched down just east of County Road 47 south of Robinson Creek Road snapping several hardwood trees, then continued north northeast to near the Amity Missionary Baptist Church on Robinson Creek Road. The tornado completely removed the roof from the church and significantly damaged several exterior walls.

The tornado touched down near Riley's Crossroads and continued northeast crossing Owens Road just east of Old Texas. On Owens Road the tornado destroyed the Bethlehem Methodist Church. The tornado continued east across Emanual Church road snapping trees in a 300 yard wide path and doing significant roof damage to at least 1 home. The tornado continued northeast into Butler County Alabama.

Roof blown off of a mobile home and a tree was blown over onto a house. Several homes sustained damage to shingles. Numerous trees blown over along the tornado path.

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

20 minutes of warning. NWS MOB issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:09 UTC, 20 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 16:22 UTC and running to 00:48 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 19:56 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.

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.