This week marks the 5th anniversary of the tornado outbreak that devastated parts of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia. A total of 363 tornadoes were confirmed in 21 states and Canada, according to Wikipedia’s description here. Included in the count were four EF5 tornadoes, which were so strong that they scoured concrete off of roads as well as obliterating houses.
The most active of all the days was April 27. In Alabama, an early morning round of storms destroyed outdoor sirens and cut power, making it difficult to get out warnings for the worse storms later in the day. You can read more about Alabama’s storms at https://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/04/sick_to_my_stomach_on_april_26.html.
The satellite image below shows many of the anvil tops of the supercell storms associated with strong tornadoes. NASA also did a retrospective on the outbreak here.
