The three fatalities occurred in northwest Kemper County when a strapped down doublewide mobile home was thrown a distance of approximately yards into a treeline, and then obliterated with the debris and framing scattered many hundreds of yards down the path.
There was no indication of ground impacts between the original site of the mobile home and where it ended up to indicate that the mobile home bounced extensively as it traveled. Also seen almost one month later in Joplin, Missouri, this tornado crushed cars into almost unrecognizable balls, similar to what you can do with aluminum foil.
Another sinister aspect to the Super Outbreak was the repeated rounds of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. Cordova, Alabama, northwest of Birmingham, was just one unfortunate example. Around a. CDT, a tornado intensified quickly as it tracked into the city of just over 2, residents. Damage there was rated EF3 on the Enhanced Fujita scale. Less than 12 hours later, another long-track tornado approached the city.
After weakening west of town, the tornado strengthened quickly as it moved into Cordova, carving a one-half-mile wide path of damage rated EF3 in the downtown area. Incredibly, Marshall County, Alabama, was affected 15 separate times by a tornado on April 27, It not uncommon for a morning cluster of severe t-storms to be followed by a more dangerous round of afternoon supercells.
The morning t-storm cluster typically produces damaging winds, flooding rain, perhaps a few tornadoes. An early-morning squall line in the Tennessee Valley on April 27, , produced an incredible 76 tornadoes in Mississippi, Alabama, east Tennessee, and north Georgia, according to the Knupp et al.
This included some long-track EF3 tornadoes, an intensity somewhat rare for early-morning squall lines. Just hours later, a second line of thunderstorms in the late morning hours spawned another seven mainly weak EF0 or EF1 tornadoes in northern Alabama.
Finally, the most destructive and deadly supercells roared across Mississippi, Alabama, north Georgia, east Tennessee and far southwest Virginia that afternoon and evening.
The individual tornado paths from the April , , Super Outbreak added up to an almost unfathomable 3, path miles, by far the greatest of any U. This total path was over miles longer than the April , , Super Outbreak.
If one could place these tornado paths end to end, it would be roughly equal to the driving distance from Portland, Maine, to San Francisco. The Tennessee Valley Authority's electrical generation and distribution took a massive hit from the Super Outbreak. Over transmission towers were mangled on April 27, Power outages affected Huntsville, Alabama, for several days, affecting everything from gas stations to traffic signals.
The Knupp et al. A total of tornado warnings were issued by the six most-affected National Weather Service Forecast offices on April 27, , alone. A pair of additional tornado warnings for the NWS-Huntsville's area of responsibility were issued by the NWS office in Jackson, Mississippi, while Huntsville employees themselves took shelter. The average lead time for tornado warnings April 27 among those six NWS offices was found to be from minutes. Speaking of, the lead times that local National Weather Service offices provided averaged 24 minutes.
That means people had almost half an hour to take action to protect life and property before a tornado struck. Last, people in the most heavily impacted southern states are now much more aware of the destructive nature of tornadoes and heed forecasts before and warnings during an event more seriously.
Unfortunately, for some, it takes an event like this to open eyes to how destructive and deadly weather can be. The outbreak of April , and more specifically, April 27, will be a watershed event and one we will compare other severe weather events to for decades to come.
Open in Our App. Download it here. Aerial view of the destruction in Birmingham, Ala. National Weather Service. Please select one of the following:. Location Help. News Headlines. Customize Your Weather. Privacy Policy. Historic Outbreak of April 27, Weather. Current Hazards. Rivers and Lakes. Climate and Past Weather. Dancy Pickens County. Northern Reform Pickens County. EF-2 mph. Holman Pickens and Tuscaloosa Counties. EF-3 mph. Berry Fayette County.
EF-1 mph. Coaling Tuscaloosa and Jefferson Counties. Parrish-Cordova Walker County. Altadena Shelby and Jefferson Counties. Cahaba Heights Jefferson County. Liberty Blount County. Odenville St. Clair County. Hackleburg Marion County. Panola Sumter and Pickens Counties. Shottsville Marion County.
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