EF2 tornado, Forkland, 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

4:35 PM CDT (21:35 UTC)

Lifted

4:52 PM CDT (21:52 UTC)

On the ground

17 minutes

Path length

8.7 miles (14.0 km)

Path width

325 yards (297 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Counties

Sumter and Greene counties

Touchdown point

32.614, -87.954

Lift-off point

32.709, -87.862

Record number

1104151535-01

39 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BMX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 125 mph.

• End point of Greensboro EF-2 Tornado - April 15, 2011. Numerous trees snapped and uprooted. west wall of church blown out. wall of church was made of cinder block and brick. wooden power pole snapped. This damage occurred along the path of the tornado track.
• numerous trees down and snapped. several trees on mobile homes. 700 yard wide tornado.
• Three mobile homes destroyed. undercarriages seperated from floor but not bent. carport collapsed on car and caused entire roof to seperate from walls of house. numerous trees snapped or uprooted. one-half mile wide tornado.
• Damage based on aerial survey from USFS.

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

A potent storm system, which wreaked havoc across the eastern half of the United States on April 14-16, produced a significant and historic tornado outbreak across Central Alabama on April 15. Forty tornadoes, 30 of which touched down in Central Alabama, occurred in the state. At the time, this set a new record for number of tornadoes within the state from one event. This record was broken on April 27, 2011. ||A surface low developed across the Central Plains on Thursday, April 14, and strengthened as it moved into the mid-Mississippi River Valley. In response, surface dew points in the middle to upper 60s surged northward into Central Alabama and deep vertical wind shear increased, providing support for tornadic supercell development. A weakening line of thunderstorms moved into northwest Central Alabama early Friday morning. The southern end of this line intensified by mid day as it encountered a more unstable airmass. South of the line, supercells formed in Mississippi and tracked eastward into west Central Alabama. The entire system pushed east across the area over the course of about twelve hours, exiting east Central Alabama in the early morning hours on Saturday, April 16. In addition to the thirty tornadoes, the storm system produced widespread straight line wind damage and numerous large hail reports.

The first segment in this tornado initially touched down in Greene County along County Road 20, 2.2 miles east of Forkland. The tornado then moved northeast into Hale County, where it lifted north of State Highway 25, 2.4 miles west of the Bibb County line. In Greene County, the tornado was rated an EF-1, with maximum winds of 105 mph. The tornado snapped hundreds of trees along its path.

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

17 minutes of warning. NWS BMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:18 UTC, 17 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:01 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 16:21 UTC and running to 00:51 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.

Meridian Nas/Mccain (NMM), 62 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Birmingham radar (KBMX), 120 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:33 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.