Severe Storms Moving Through Alabama And Deep South

Alabama Severe Weather -

Late afternoon and evening severe storms moved through large portions of the Deep South and Northern Gulf coast states today. This was the first severe weather setup of 2009 for the South, and Alabama seemed to take the brunt of the action. A tornado watch was issued during the afternoon, and several tornado warnings were active throughout the evening hours. In the following nexrad radar picture, you can see a tornado warned thunderstorm cell moving along I-20 in east-central Alabama in Calhoun County. The cell in the image almost looks like a backwards little hook echo, and was showing signs of decent rotation as the cell tracked very fast to the northeast near 70mph. I couldn’t imagine chasing that cell through the Alabama tree’s and hills after dark.

Severe Weather Reports Minimal -

Luckily there have been no confirmed tornado reports outside of a strange water spout report on Weiss Lake, AL. There were also a few funnel cloud reports, but without incident. Most of the severe weather reports with damage were related to straight-line winds likely associate with the squall line and downburst winds in the stronger cells embedded in the line. Now that the daytime heating is gone, storms to begin to weaken as we move into the late evening hours. Tornado watch #3 should expire in the next hour, and Tornado Watch# remains active for several more hours as the line of strong to severe storms moves into the out looked area from the west.