April 1998 Birmingham tornado
Radar shot of the Birmingham supercell with the hook echo tornado signature located near Oak Grove.
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| Type | Tornado outbreak |
|---|---|
| Duration | April 6–9, 1998 |
| Tornadoes confirmed | 62 |
| Max rating1 | F5 tornado |
| Duration of tornado outbreak2 | ~4 days |
| Damage | unknown |
| Casualties | 41 fatalities, 250+ injuries |
| Areas affected | Midwestern and Eastern United States |
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1Most severe tornado damage; see Fujita scale 2Time from first tornado to last tornado |
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1Most severe tornado damage; see Fujita scale
The April 6–9, 1998 tornado outbreak was a large tornado outbreak that started on April 6 across the Great Plains and ended on April 9 across the Carolinas and Georgia. A total of 62 tornadoes touched down from the Middle Atlantic States to the Midwestern United States and Texas. The outbreak is infamous for producing a deadly F5 that tore through the suburbs of Birmingham, killing 32 people. The Birmingham tornado was one of only two F5 tornadoes that year. The other hit in Lawrence County, Tennessee, on April 16, as part of the same outbreak as the 1998 Nashville tornadoes. This tornado outbreak was responsible for 41 deaths: 7 in Georgia and 34 in Alabama.
Shortly after 7:30 P.M. on April 8, the deadliest tornado of the outbreak touched down in extreme eastern Tuscaloosa County and cut a 31-mile-long (50 km) (49 km), 3⁄4-mile-wide (1.2 km) swath through multiple Birmingham suburbs, producing damage ranging from F3 to F5 and causing massive destruction before lifting in the western limits of the City of Birmingham, just northwest of the junctions of Interstates 20, 59 and 65. The worst of the destruction occurred across the Oak Grove, Rock Creek and McDonald Chapel areas. The second area affected by F5 damage was also devastated by a violent tornado in 1956 that tracked through the same areas hit by this storm. Debris from the tornado was scattered across central Alabama as far north as sections of Blount County, and extensive deforestation occurred along the majority of the path.[1]
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