2.6 SSW Wallsburg - 1.4 NNE Sikes National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage from central Elmore County, eastward across central Tallapoosa County and the Lake Martin area, to western Chambers County. It has been determined that the damage was consistent with a violent tornado. After further review from tornado damage experts, it has been determined that the Lake Martin tornado was consistent with EF-4 damage at its strongest, with winds up to 170 mph. The tornado touched down along County Road 209 near Meadowview Drive where a few snapped trees were noted. From there, the tornado quickly intensified as it moved northeast through Dexter, where it widened and produced EF-2 damage to several homes. From there, it continued across Highway 9 and damaged several homes, and then intensified to EF-3 strength as it moved through a mobile home park at the intersection of Middle Road and Auction Barn Road. Here, the tornado completely destroyed 10 mobile homes and killed 4 people. The tornado continued east to the Mount Hebron Road area and destroyed several homes, businesses, 2 churches, and an agricultural nursery. The tornado then crossed Lake Martin, just south of the Highway 63 Bridge. The tornado produced significant damage to numerous homes around the Windermere area. At this point, the tornado was nearly 1/4 mile wide. The tornado then moved into Tallapoosa County just south of County Road 34, where it widened to nearly 1/2 mile and strengthened to EF-4 intensity. Here the damage was the most widespread and severe with several well built multi-story homes totally destroyed with no walls remaining on floors above basement level. The tornado continued at this strength but became narrower to nearly 400 yards wide as it crossed Highway 49 just north of Jones Road where it destroyed 2 homes and rolled a pick-up truck 120 yards. The tornado continued northeast and weakened to EF-3 strength with winds of 155 mph. It crossed U.S. Hwy 280 just east of Dadeville where it produced significant damage to several homes and businesses, and caused one fatality. The tornado crossed into Chambers County west of Lafayette, south of CR 48. The tornado crossed into western Chambers County and passed just to the north of Sikes. Along County Road 54 north of Sikes, one home was completely destroyed. The tornado weakened as it moved northeast across County Road 66 and ended just north of County Road 51. Start: 32.6174/-86.1930 End: 32.9196/-85.5230

NWS EF Scale: F4

A tornado touched down in central Elmore County and moved northeast through central Tallapoosa and western Chambers Counties, before it lifted north northwest of Lafayette. The tornado touched down north of Wetumpka, along CR 209 where a few trees were downed and minor home damage were noted. The tornado quickly intensified as it moved northeast through Dexter, where it caused major damage to several homes, outbuildings and farm equipment that was consistent with winds of 130 mph, an EF2. It continued across AL Hwy 9 and damaged several homes. The tornado intensified south of Central to EF3 strength, where it destroyed a mobile home and damaged several single family homes near CR 418. It moved through a mobile home park at the intersection of Middle Road and Auction Barn Road, where it completely destroyed 10 mobile homes and killed 4 people. The tornado continued east to the Mount Hebron Road area. Here, the tornado destroyed several homes, businesses, 2 churches, and an agricultural nursery. The tornado then crossed Lake Martin, just south of the AL Hwy 63 Bridge, doing significant damage to numerous homes around the Windermere area, as its path widened to 0.5 mile. The tornado crossed into Tallapoosa County near Stoney Ridge Rd.

A powerful storm system crossed the Southeast United States on Wednesday, April 27, 2011, resulting in a large and deadly tornado outbreak. This epic event broke the record for number of tornadoes in a day for the state of Alabama, becoming the most significant tornado outbreak in the state���s history. ||Central Alabama had two rounds of severe weather that day. During the early morning hours, a Quasi-Linear Convective System quickly moved across the northern half of the National Weather Service, Birmingham county warning area. Straight line winds of 90 mph (78kts) or greater and 11 tornadoes lead to widespread damage and power outages. During the afternoon, long-lived supercell thunderstorms produced long-track, strong and violent tornadoes. Destruction and loss of life across many towns and communities was devastating. ||The hardest hit areas included Shottsville and Hackleburg, both in Marion County, where winds of 160 mph and 210 mph respectively, caused unimagineable damage. Cordova, in Walker County, was hit twice; by a tornado along the Quasi-Linear Convective System during the early morning hours and again in the afternoon by a long-track EF4 tornado. A long track tornado moved across the city of Tuscaloosa and the western suburbs of Birmingham, resulting in the complete destruction of whole neighborhoods and numerous injuries and fatalities in those heavily populated areas. The same parent supercell produced another violent tornado in east Central Alabama as it tracked across St. Clair and Calhoun Counties, resulting in additional fatalities and incredible damage to a number of neighborhoods. Another violent EF4 tornado tracked across portions of Elmore and Tallapoosa Counties, including Lake Martin, destroying numerous homes and a large section of a mobile home park. ||Most of the violent tornadoes from this day were captured on video by a number of people, including storm spotters and chasers, as well as numerous television news crews and remotely controlled web-enabled video cameras. This allowed unprecedented coverage and viewing of this historic event in real time from people worldwide.

Part of 59-tornado outbreak on April 27, 2011