Prattville, AL Serious Tornado Damage

Currently, the radar shows a strong cell directly over me. Lightning has been flashing pretty regularly for some time now. Looks like a tornado dropped in Cairo, GA, which is a few counties to my west, in mini-tornado alley. On TWC, which I was just watching, the big story seems to be in Prattville, AL, where a destructive tornado wreaked havoc, damaging 200 homes, destroying many of those and injuring 29. It looks like the path of this specific supercell tracked 320 miles(!!), producing over 20 tornado reports spanning from the Gulf Coast up into Central Georgia near Roberta... you know, where Meso Mike is. Looks like the severe aspect of the storm at my end has subsided. It seems to be limited to thunderstorms here, but tornado watches span the east coast, and like I said, lightning is frequent.

Jeff mentioned he would be streaming some video of the tornado damage in Alabama and the Florida panhandle by Jim Edds on his blog, so be sure to check that out.

Alabama Mike, who has embedded video of the Prattville tornado damage in his blog, was kind enough to send proof of the Dewvoid...Good grief... I'm getting kind of used to this whole Dewvoid weather void. We did get 2.62" of rain. That's at least beneficial.

I wanted to update about the tornado outbreak that occurred in Alabama and Georgia on February 17th. The Weather Channel has linked some pictures of the tornado damage in Molino, FL, and Prattville, AL. You can check out those pics at this link. Then, Greg Forbes, a severe weather expert affiliated with TWC, wrote an article about the off-season outbreak, which I found quite interesting, where he actually describes the thermodynamics that prevented Saturday from being a monster event, like the event on February 5-6, of this year. True, yesterday was a massive outbreak, with one impressively long-tracked supercell that seemed to drop tornadoes on a whim, but apparently, with just a slight change in the thermodynamics for the day, the outcome could have been devastating. Currently, the SPC (Storm Prediction Center) has preliminary reports of 34 tornadoes during Sunday’s outbreak.

This is an account of a friend of mine's daughter's experience with this tornado:

My daughter and her family were in a tornado yesterday. They are all fine. Their garage door blew off, ceiling of the garage fell down on their cars so they can't get them out of the garage. Their big trampoline is wrapped around a tree in a neighbor's yard. They've been evacuated from their house-----the power lines are all down so not sure when they can get back in. They stayed with friends across town last night. They had to walk several blocks to meet up with the friends since the roads were impassable. The news report this morning said 200 houses were damaged or destroyed, 30 people injured. The kid's school was damaged and has no power so not sure how long they will be out of school. I'm just so thankful that they are all uninjured. Praise God. Her husband helped the neighborhood men in digging out an old man who was bedridden and his roof blew off. That house is directly across the street from my daughter and her family's home. He was still in his bed---thankfully not injured. My daughter and her family rode out the storm in the bathroom covered with blankets and pillows. She said lots of the trees and electric poles are down in their neighborhood. She was still pretty upset when I talked to her yesterday afternoon, but was calmer this morning. Her son, who is very afraid of thunder and lightning, is doing okay----either handling things well or still hasn't realized what happened. This sure won't help him be less afraid of storms!!!!

I am so glad to hear that her family faired well, must have been a traumatizing ordeal for them. God bless all those recovering from this storm.

Though storm damage assessments have not been completed, there is some preliminary information posted on the Birmingham, National Weather Service site.

A NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SURVEY TEAM IS IN THE PROCESS OF ACCESSING THE DAMAGE IN AUTAUGA COUNTY. IT HAS BEEN DETERMINED THE DAMAGE WAS THE RESULT OF A TORNADO... RANKING EF-3 ON THE ENHANCED FUJITA SCALE. A TOTAL PATH LENGTH IS YET TO BE DETERMINED... BUT THE DAMAGE PATH IS 450 YARDS WIDE AT ITS WIDEST POINT. THE MOST DAMAGE OCCURRED ALONG EAST MAIN STREET NEAR MCQUEEN SMITH ROAD AND IN THE SILVER HILLS SUBDIVISION. AN ESTIMATED 200 RESIDENTIAL HOMES AND 40 BUSINESSES WERE DAMAGED OR DESTROYED. HUNDREDS OF TREES WERE EITHER SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. IN ADDITION...50 INJURIES WERE REPORTED. WIND SPEEDS ARE ESTIMATED TO BE UP TO 150 MILES PER HOUR. THIS DAMAGE OCCURED AT APPROXIMATELY 305 PM. A TORNADO WARNING WAS IN EFFECT FROM 2:31 PM UNTIL 3:30 PM.

Each morning I read Proverbs matching the day of the month, and now, I am reading Psalms in a rotating order... Psalm 18 was interesting, so I thought I would share it:

He parted the heavens and came down;
dark clouds were under his feet.
He mounted the cherubim and flew;
he soared on the wings of the wind.
He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him—
the dark rain clouds of the sky.
Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced,
with hailstones and bolts of lightning.
The LORD thundered from heaven;
the voice of the Most High resounded.
He shot his arrows and scattered the enemies ,
great bolts of lightning and routed them.
He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
he drew me out of deep waters.
He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
from my foes, who were too strong for me.
They confronted me in the day of my disaster,
but the LORD was my support.
He brought me out into a spacious place;
he rescued me because he delighted in me.

~Dew