16th Anniversary of F4 Tuscaloosa Tornado

While it’s easy to think of April 27, 2011 when discussing a violent tornado hitting Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the EF-4 that devastated the city on that fateful day was hardly the first such tornado to hit the area.

The day was Saturday, December 16, 2000 and it was unseasonably warm across the southeastern United States. Temperatures surged to near 70ºF across central Alabama. Approaching the area was a major shortwave trough that would soon help spark the F4 tornado.

Low pressure sat over northeastern Mississippi at noon CST and by 2pm CST, Tuscaloosa’s temperature had soared to 72º with a dew point had climbed to 66º, values more representative of a spring-like atmosphere than a winter one. Soundings showed turning of the winds with height: south at the surface but southwest as you moved up through the atmosphere, generating the spin needed to spawn tornadoes.

By 10am, the Storm Prediction Center had already issued a rare “particularly dangerous situation” or PDS Tornado Watch that covered much of Alabama and Eastern Mississippi and called for damaging tornadoes. Late that morning, a supercell formed in Mississippi and tracked northeast across the Alabama state line. The first tornado warning for Tuscaloosa County was issued at 12:40pm CST.

According to the NWS Birmingham storm survey, the tornado touched down at 12:54pm and lifted at 1:12pm after carving an 18-mile path of destruction through the heart of Tuscaloosa County with a maximum width of about 750 yards. The storm killed 11 people (9 of these in mobile homes) and injured 144 people. The survey rated it as an F4 (the Enhanced Fujita or “EF” scale wouldn’t be developed and implemented for another few years). The storm would go on to produce more tornadoes, rated F2 and F3, to the north and east across St. Clair, Etowah and Cherokee counties.

The tornado was shown to a live television audience watching Birmingham station ABC 33/40. Due to the unique way that the station was set up, they had a tower cam placed on their transmission tower (repeater WCFT, the “33” in “ABC 33/40”) in Tuscaloosa that captured the tornado moving into town. Legendary Alabama meteorologist James Spann has uploaded a portion of the coverage to YouTube.

This tornado became tied with a tornado in Georgia for the deadliest of the year 2000 and was the strongest tornado to hit the state in the month of December since tornado records began in 1950. While there is a bit of severe weather in the forecast this weekend for portions of the deep south, the good news is that nothing like this is expected to occur.