Alabama meteorologists remember April 27, 2011 tornadoes
By Dennis Washington April 26, 2021
Advances in technology have improved the way we receive severe weather alerts since the April 27, 2011, tornado outbreak. (contributed)
Like many Alabamians, National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologist John De Block will never forget April 27, 2011.
“I never thought when I arrived at work at 4 a.m. that morning that I would be issuing tornado warnings within 10 minutes,” De Block said. “That’s indeed what happened.”
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De Block and his colleagues at the NWS forecast office in Calera spent the next 18 hours issuing dozens of tornado warnings. By the end of the day 62 tornadoes had struck Alabama – the most to ever hit the state in one day, killing as many as 252 people and injuring 2,200 others, according to official sources.