Mutliple Bow Echoes - April 20, 2011

Multiple Bow Echoes on April 20th, 2011

On Wednesday, April 20th, two separate bow echoes moved through Central Alabama. Both caused widespread straight line wind damage and localized flooding throughout the area. Here is a brief summary of the event and damage accounts from this day:

Around 345 am CDT, the first bow echo moved across the Mississippi-Alabama State Line. As the storm moved through Marion County, the northern end of the line bowed significantly, which caused straight line winds of 80 to 90 mph to reach the surface. Marion County EMA reported multiple areas of widespread damage in the communities of Hackleburg and Bear Creek. Many trees were uprooted or snapped, a chicken coop was damaged and there were multiple homes damaged. One of the damaged mobile homes lost its tin roof. Special thanks to Marion County EMA for their assistance in assessing the damage. In addition to the damage in Marion County, trees were reported down in Winston, Walker, Fayette, Blount and Lamar Counties as well.

The second bow echo developed and moved into the northwest counties of Central Alabama around 915 pm CDT. Though there were no areas of concentrated damage, there were widespread reports of trees down in many of the same counties where damage occurred from the first bow echo.

The first bow echo produced heavy rainfall that saturated the ground. Therefore, the second bow echo produced flooding in Lamar and Fayette Counties. Flooding was reported in Hubbertville in northern Fayette County where Emergency Management personnel said they had not seen flooding in many years.


Surface Analysis at 4 am on April 20th, 2011	Surface Analysis at 7 pm on April 21th, 2011

Storm Reports for April 20th, 2011	Day One Outlook issued at 1230 am. Click for more.