It wasn’t the tornado outbreak of April 27, 2011. In fact, it wasn’t even close.
But the storms that swept across Alabama on Monday and into early Tuesday morning was the most significant outbreak since that historic day three years ago.According to storm surveys from the National Weather Service, 23 tornadoes touched down across central and northern Alabama – including two that touched down just north of the Alabama-Tennessee state line in Lincoln County, Tenn.
For comparison, there were 62 tornadoes that touched down in Alabama on April 27, 2011.
By the numbers, here’s a look back at tornado outbreak on Monday and early Tuesday and how it compared to past events in Alabama, based on data from the National Weather Service.
4 deaths were attributed to the 15 tornadoes. Two each were in Limestone County and Lincoln County. The 2011 outbreak killed 254 people, according to the Alabama EMA.
2 EF-3 tornadoes were blamed for the 4 storm deaths. From 1950-2013, EF-4 tornadoes were responsible for 43 percent of the tornado deaths in Alabama, followed by EF-5 tornadoes at 36 percent and EF-3 tornadoes at 14 percent.
3 deaths were attributed to the 108 tornadoes across Alabama since the 2011 outbreak until Monday’s storms began.
0 deaths occurred in 36 tornadoes that touched down since the 2011 outbreak in north Alabama and southern Tennessee in the area overseen by the Huntsville weather office.
177.77 miles is how far the 23 tornadoes traveled on the ground Monday and early Tuesday. The longest track was 20.1 miles by the EF-3 tornado in Lincoln County, Tenn., that killed two people and the shortest track was 1.24 miles by an EF-0 tornado in Macon County.
20 tornadoes in the 2011 outbreak traveled longer distances than the longest tornado in the Monday-Tuesday outbreak, including two churning a path of more than 100 miles – the longest an EF-4 that went 127.8 miles, beginning in Pickens County and traveling through Tuscaloosa, Fayette, Walker, Cullman, Blount and Marshall counties. The EF-5 Hackleburg tornado traveled 118.63 miles.
23 tornadoes in one single event are tied for the fifth-most in state history along with Sept. 25, 2005 since the National Weather Service began keeping records in 1950.
5 of the 20 tornadoes were classified as EF-3, followed by 5 EF-2, 11 EF-1 and 2 EF-0.
160 mph in the Lincoln County EF-3 was the top estimated peak wind speed of the 20 tornadoes.
5 days of warning that strong tornadoes were possible by the Storm Prediction Center in Oklahoma, a nod to the advancement in the science of weather forecasting.
1974 is another landmark year for Alabama tornadoes, based on the April 3 outbreak responsible for 77 deaths in Alabama, according to data from the National Weather Service. That outbreak, however, included only 10 tornadoes. Tornado storm surveys, though, have become more sophisticated over the years and, as a result, weather experts are able to identify more tornado paths.
Updated Saturday, May 3, 2014 at 10:56 a.m. with results of storm surveys on Friday that identified three new tornado tracks.