Tornadoes in Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida during a double shot of severe weather

Well, an active day yesterday and a somewhat less active night than expected, but still busy with weather. I am relieved that it didn't produce to the level expected because night storms are just too dangerous. You know, I think that every home should come with a built in Weather Radio, just like how they come equipped with smoke detectors. Enough of my soapbox though, I got word of two folks chasing last night. First, my friend Jeff Gammons was chasing the weather as it occurred in the southern peninsula of Florida. He is now recovering after a late night. Second, Jim Edds chased in central Florida, then headed to Milton, FL, in the Florida panhandle, to investigate damage caused by a possible tornado for the sake of capturing it on video. While I watched for the limited time I had available last night, I noticed several tornado warnings popping up around the peninsula, but only 4 tornado reports came out of Florida. The warning in Central, Floida, near Clermont, produced some wind damage, but no tornado reports from that area.

In checking on the status of tornado reports at the various National Weather Service sites (which, of course, aren't available yet), I came across this coloring book on the NWS-Melbourne site entitled "It Came From Nowhere, Our Story of Surviving a Tornado", which was written and illustrated by young survivors of last year's Lake Mack tornado, which depicts and describes their experiences. Here is a link to a video about the coloring book and their story. It is a tragic, yet touching story of hope and healing after a devastating tornado.

Locally, as would be expected, the squall line fizzled out long before arriving in GA. The Storm Prediction Center's tornado watch lasted all of 2 hours and 47 minutes, before it was clear that any threat of severe weather had been promptly taken care of by the Dewvoid. I don't recall hearing any thunder last night, but generally, I sleep like the dead. Good thing my EAS tone on the weather radio resonates... apparently, it is designed to wake the dead. lol. I did accumulate 0.31" of rainfall at my house, where my CoCoRaHS approved rain gauge (don't forget to volunteer) got its first shot at measuring precipitation. I went ahead and reported it for the sake of doing it, but Georgia is not yet on board. sigh. Soon.

Oh, please check out Beth Ellen's blog with some more great macro snowflake shots.

Have a great day!
~Dewdrop