EF1 tornado, Grand Bay to Theodore, Alabama, March 9, 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

March 9, 2011

Touchdown

8:31 AM CST (14:31 UTC)

Lifted

8:32 AM CST (14:32 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.2 miles (0.3 km)

Path width

80 yards (73 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Mobile County

Touchdown point

30.547, -88.370

Lift-off point

30.549, -88.368

Record number

1103090831-01

10 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 135 mph.

• Roof blown off of home. Approximately 50 percent of the sheathing and some cross-members removed. Several trees snapped around the damage site.
• Several sections of roofing and facade of the Food World shopping center blown off or damaged.
• Numerous glass windows and doors blown out of Church's Chicken restaurant. Roof decking lifted and blown off. 2 large air conditioning units (weighing at least 800 lbs) were also blown off the roof onto the parking lot.
• Horse barn completely destroyed. Large pine tree lost most limbs and twisted off at the top. Mobile home shifted on foundation.

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

A powerful cold front brought widespread severe thunderstorms to southwest Alabama. These thunderstorms produced many reports of large hail...damaging winds and tornadoes. The thunderstorms also produced heavy rain which caused flash flooding.

The tornado touched down just south of County Road 33 along Fred Freeland Road. The tornado widened to about 80 yards wide, destroying a horse barn, moving a double wide mobile home off its foundation, snapping several pine trees and bringing down power lines.

The tornado touched down near Fire Tower Road blowing off the roof of a residence and blowing over several trees. The tornado strengthened and widened to around 100 yards wide as it crossed the Food World grocery store just west of Theodore Dawes Road, taking sections of the roof off the store, and tossing several cars in the parking lot several feet. The tornado continued east across Theodore Dawes Road severely damaging a Church's Chicken restaurant, destroying a gas service station and a small metal frame shopping center. The tornado continued along Old Pascagoula road destroying a small business, destroying a wood framed home and significantly damaging several other residences and apartments. The tornado lifted as it crossed an apartment complex on Sperry Road, doing minor damage to the roof of 2 units. Mobile County Emergency Management Agency reported the tornado damaged about 25 commercial and residential structures. The damage ranged from minor to serious, with about half of the buildings in the serious category.

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

4 minutes of warning. NWS MOB issued a tornado warning for this county at 14:27 UTC, 4 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 15:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 13:26 UTC and running to 18:22 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. The outlook in force was issued at 12:38 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.

Pascagoula (PQL), 18 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Mobile radar (KMOB), 19 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 14:30 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

14 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.