EF1 tornado, Poplar Spgs to Double Spgs Arpt, Alabama, April 11, 2013

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

April 11, 2013

Touchdown

2:57 PM CDT (19:57 UTC)

Lifted

3:00 PM CDT (20:00 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

2.6 miles (4.2 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Winston County

Touchdown point

34.013, -87.433

Lift-off point

34.035, -87.394

Record number

1304111357-01

64 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BMX and NWS HUN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• Multiple pine trees snapped in a ~25 yd wide path
• multiple pine trees snapped & uprooted, including a few snapped at the base atop a small ridge. most others in the valley snapped 30+ feet aloft
• multiple trees in swamp snapped (some old, most fresh)
• multiple trees snapped/uprooted on shore of smith lake, in confined area, laying in multiple directions

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

Severe thunderstorms ahead of and along a cold front moved across Central Alabama on Thursday, April 11th. Storms along the cold front formed into a quasi-linear convective system, causing wind damage and producing seven tornadoes across the area. Ahead of the line, strong daytime heating and increasing instabilities coupled with strong diffluence aloft created prime conditions for discrete thunderstorms to form. These storms caused wind damage across portions of northeast Central Alabama during the late afternoon.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed the damage in Winston County and have determined that the damage was due to an EF-1 tornado, with winds of 110 mph. The tornado touched down in a wooded, rural area west of County Road 21 and east of Indian Creek. The tornado tracked northeast and generally parallel to County Road 21. A hardwood tree snapped and fell on a mobile home near the beginning of the path on County Road 21. Additionally, the tornado snapped and uprooted dozens of trees beyond a strip mine area. The tornado completely removed the roof of a 50 to 60 year old home, damaged another nearby residence, and snapped and uprooted several more trees, one of which crushed a small produce stand. The tornado continued northeast where it demolished a large shed in the parking lot of another strip mine, and damaged the mine office.The tornado then crossed Highway 195 where it toppled more trees which fell onto nearby residences. The tornado lifted east of Highway 195 before it reached County Road 8.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed the damage between Double Springs and Houston in Winston County and have determined that the damage was due to a brief EF-1 tornado, with winds of 105 mph. The tornado touched down along Highway 278 just east of the Winston County Airport. The tornado tracked generally north where it snapped and uprooted numerous trees. The tornado then moved along the Sipsey Fork, which feeds into Smith Lake. One boat house was destroyed, and a pontoon boat inside was flipped over. Several hardwood trees fell onto lake homes and sheds along Gary's Road and Spiller Road. The tornado weakened as it approached Robinson Bottom Road and lift north of Robinson Bottom Road.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:00 UTC and running to 21:38 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:21 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.

Manchester (JFX), 16 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Columbus AFB radar (KGWX), 86 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:59 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 2013 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

13 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.