Southern storms

[bleedorange]

Is everyone here that is from the South okay? Just some horrific images all night last night. There is nothing scarier than a tornado. Thoughts and prayers to anyone affected.

[jff]

The storm went about 50 miles north of where I live. We got lucky and dodged a bullet in Atlanta Metro area. Looks like middle Alabama got the worst of it. The weather's been scary this spring.

 

Hope everyone's ok.

[lamradio]

Here in South Carolina, we haven't seen it as bad as Mississippi or Alabama but it seems like there have been nothing but strong thunderstorms every day for the last week.. We're under a tornado watch now and will be until this evening. A friend of mine has a sister in Alabama and said she went to her fiancees apartment just before last nights storm in Tuscaloosa. When she came back, her apartment was literally gone...

 

Edit: Correction, Tuscaloosa Alabama, not Mississippi.. duh..

[bleedorange]

Here in South Carolina, we haven't seen it as bad as Mississippi or Alabama but it seems like there have been nothing but strong thunderstorms every day for the last week.. We're under a tornado watch now and will be until this evening. A friend of mine has a sister in Mississipi and said she went to her fiancees apartment just before last nights storm in Tuscaloosa. When she came back, her apartment was literally gone...

 

My wife has some friends in Tuscaloosa who are safe, thankfully. Ever since moving to Fort Worth from San Antonio and Austin, I dread this time of year for this reason.

[jff]

My wife has some friends in Tuscaloosa who are safe, thankfully. Ever since moving to Fort Worth from San Antonio and Austin, I dread this time of year for this reason.

 

I don't remember the weather being this violent in my lifetime. We haven't had any Spring showers in Atlanta this year. We've either had perfect sunny days, or extremely heavy rain, damaging winds and tornadoes. Usually we'll have two or three big storms in the Spring, and the rest of the season is nice days and gentle to moderate showers.

[bleedorange]

I don't remember the weather being this violent in my lifetime. We haven't had any Spring showers in Atlanta this year. We've either had perfect sunny days, or extremely heavy rain, damaging winds and tornadoes. Usually we'll have two or three big storms in the Spring, and the rest of the season is nice days and gentle to moderate showers.

 

The worst I can remember for us was about 3-4 years ago, where we had a major storm system come through every week for a couple of months each year. We had a tree come down in our back yard to rest on some power lines, and we would sit in the middle of our house to wait it out every night.

[ih8music]

Hope everyone in VC land is safe. Scary, devastating stuff.

[The High Heat]

I live in eastern NC and two Saturdays ago there were 60 tornadoes reported from the Raleigh area and eastward. Several counties are now listed as federal disaster areas. One Lowe's hardware store was destroyed almost entirely. Fortunately the part of the building that didn't go down was the back part where the manager took all the customers and employees for cover. There were countless homes, businesses, schools destroyed or heavily damaged. One tornado in a rural county killed 12 people, including an entire family. The closest tornado to me was a couple miles down the road, but it was a baby storm compared to everywhere else around here.

[Guest Jules]

I hope William and Kate are ok!

[virtualreason]

As a meteorologist, and one that happens to be on TV warning people about tornadoes, I hope people will learn from these events. Any time there is a tornado warning, you need to act immediately. You need to pay attention to weather forecasts during severe weather season. A plan must be in place to keep people safe at home, work, and school.

 

There is no reason, in this age of technology, that people say they never knew a tornado was coming or didn't know what to do to stay safe. This outbreak has the potential to be one of the deadliest in this country's history. It shares the top spots with tornado outbreaks that occurred in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, when forecasting and information dissemination was rather primitive compared to today. There is NO REASON for nearly 300 people to die from tornadoes in an entire year, much less the span of 24 hours. The only caveat to that being: EF4 and EF5 tornadoes are incredibly difficult to survive unless you're underground, and the Tuscaloosa/Birmingham tornado easily looks like an EF4 or EF5.

 

People can chide me all they want for what I do or taking this position on a sometimes hostile and flippant message board, but this is why I chose my career. I'm going to be a bullhorn of information trying my damnedest to keep people safe during severe weather. I seriously urge anyone that doesn't know what to do when a tornado approaches them--either at work, at home, in a car, wherever--to educate yourself. It's the same reason as buying insurance. Why not ensure your safety by learning what to do in the unlikely event a tornado is bearing down on you.

 

My heart goes out to everyone affected by these storms; especially the ones that took action but still lost their lives due to incredibly violent tornadoes.

[The High Heat]

As a meteorologist, and one that happens to be on TV warning people about tornadoes, I hope people will learn from these events. Any time there is a tornado warning, you need to act immediately. You need to pay attention to weather forecasts during severe weather season. A plan must be in place to keep people safe at home, work, and school.

 

There is no reason, in this age of technology, that people say they never knew a tornado was coming or didn't know what to do to stay safe. This outbreak has the potential to be one of the deadliest in this country's history. It shares the top spots with tornado outbreaks that occurred in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, when forecasting and information dissemination was rather primitive compared to today. There is NO REASON for nearly 300 people to die from tornadoes in an entire year, much less the span of 24 hours. The only caveat to that being: EF4 and EF5 tornadoes are incredibly difficult to survive unless you're underground, and the Tuscaloosa/Birmingham tornado easily looks like an EF4 or EF5.

 

People can chide me all they want for what I do or taking this position on a sometimes hostile and flippant message board, but this is why I chose my career. I'm going to be a bullhorn of information trying my damnedest to keep people safe during severe weather. I seriously urge anyone that doesn't know what to do when a tornado approaches them--either at work, at home, in a car, wherever--to educate yourself. It's the same reason as buying insurance. Why not ensure your safety by learning what to do in the unlikely event a tornado is bearing down on you.

 

My heart goes out to everyone affected by these storms; especially the ones that took action but still lost their lives due to incredibly violent tornadoes.

Is there any certain reason for the immense quantity of these storms and tornadoes the last two weeks? Is there a specific pattern holding place or is it just one of those rare occurences that happens every so many generations? Both? Neither?

[virtualreason]

Chances are that the quantity isn't much different from outbreaks in the past. The reports are record setting simply because more people are out there looking at the storms and more people know how to make reports. Those numbers can be a little misleading, but that doesn't belittle how active the last couple of weeks have been.

 

The jet stream has been on a more southerly track, most likely do to the strong la niña conditions that are winding down. What I find fascinating are the number of times the upper level wind patterns form a negatively tilted trough--basically it bulges out to the southeast and leaves a trailing trough to the northwest.

 

Here's a great picture explaining it.

 

What this pattern does is transfer more energy from the upper level winds to the surrounding surface low, creating more intense storms. With the jet staying to the south, these storms are more prone to picking up a TON of moisture from the Gulf and creating much more instability when compared to a northerly jet pattern at this time of year.

[Scott Gyrrr]

Those tornadoes look so scary. We don't have anything like that kind of weather down here. As a builder it had me thinking what the hell kind of house you could build to handle that.

[virtualreason]

Those tornadoes look so scary. We don't have anything like that kind of weather down here. As a builder it had me thinking what the hell kind of house you could build to handle that.

 

There are newly constructed brick buildings that didn't survive these storms. EF4 and EF5 damage, by definition, means that brick structures are severely damaged, if not completely destroyed. I would think you would need reinforced concrete to survive such impressive storms.

[welch79]

i live just south of knoxville, and while we didn't have the kind of weather northern alabama had, we were getting the same storms, just downstream after possibly weakening a bit. wednesday evening, beginning at 4pm, my county was issued its first tornado warning. that warning was set to expire at 4:30...but ended up getting extended several times until, ultimately, the last warning expired at 1am. that was nerve-wracking to say the least, and i was exhausted from the stress of that all day thurs.

 

we weathered five super cell storms with a hook echo which tells meteorologists, etc., that the cell could very well/does very well contain a tornado. i heard that there were about 30 tornados (maybe more) from chattanooga northward, one of which, i'm told, was either a strong ef3 possibly ef4.

 

twenty minutes further north, in knoxville proper, there was marble all the way to softball sized hail. it's freaky to drive around town and see folks' cars as if godzilla has been munching on them.

 

i spent a great deal of my childhood in dallas, and i can't remember anything that intense for that long (approx 8 continuous hours of tornado warnings).

 

all told, there may be only a handful of fatalities in my area. in the chattanooga area, there were more. of course this pales in comparison to that massive tornado in tuscaloosa. my heart goes out to them.

[The High Heat]

Turns out my Uncle James was killed in one of those Alabama tornadoes. His body was found 500 feet from his house. I only met the man once or twice when I was a kid, but I can't say I remember him. I'll certainly remember how he left us.

 

R.I.P. James

[dagwave]

man.

 

i offer my humble condolences..., my friend.

[The High Heat]

man.

 

i offer my humble condolences..., my friend.

Thank you, dagwave.

[bleedorange]

man.

 

i offer my humble condolences..., my friend.

 

Same here. Very sorry to hear the news.

 

My wife's friend is a teacher and a lot of her students lost everything. We just packed up a box full of clothes, food, toothpaste, etc., to send out there. Just stuff she said a lot of kids need.