EF0 tornado, Nottingham, Alabama, February 28, 2011

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF0

Date

February 28, 2011

Touchdown

3:53 PM CST (21:53 UTC)

Lifted

3:54 PM CST (21:54 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.5 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$8,000

County

Talladega County

Touchdown point

33.354, -86.221

Lift-off point

33.355, -86.215

Record number

1102281553-01

On the afternoon of Sunday, February 27th, a low pressure system developed in the Southern Plains, eventually tracking across the Tennessee Valley, well to the north of Alabama. In response to this low pressure, coupled by high pressure off the Atlantic Coast, southerly flow brought low 60 dew point temperatures as far north as Huntsville by 12 am Sunday night. By the late morning hours of Monday, February 28th, a secondary surface low developed and tracked across the northern half of the state of Alabama. This surface low created storms that began of a cellular nature by Noon on Monday. These cells evolved into a broken line of thunderstorms by the middle of the afternoon on Monday. Embedded in the line were storms that developed supercellular structures, a few of which spawned tornadoes and many areas of straight line wind damage. Click on each for a summary of the tornadoes.

A brief tornado touched down along CR 46, about 2.5 miles northwest of Winterboro and moved eastward, dissipating just after it crossed Reynolds Mill Road. Several trees were snapped or uprooted along the short path. One home sustained damage to the front porch and metal roofs to several outbuildings were partially removed.

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

14 minutes of warning. NWS BMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 21:39 UTC, 14 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 22:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:39 UTC and running to 22:50 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:40 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.

The Birmingham radar (KBMX), 55 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:54 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

25 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.