Saturday, April 10, 2010
April 10th 2009 Hail and Tornado Outbreak
As many of you recall on April 10th of 2009 we were pounded with severe weather across North and Central Alabama with a total of 10 tornadoes, 2 in North Alabama( including a EF-3 in Marshall, DeKalb, and Jackson Counties) and 8 across Central Alabama and very large hail.I personally had baseball size hail at my home in Madison and there where numerous other reports of large hail across North Alabama. The size of the hail that day, we do not normally see here in Alabama, hail that size is what people are used to seeing in the plains. To see the NWS Huntsville reports and pictures from that day please click the title. If anyone has photos or comments about that day we would love to hear from you.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
That was one scary day. The SPC didn't issue a high risk until it was already moving out of the state, and I noticed a lot of people really downplaying the moderate risk that morning. But by the time the sun came out that day, I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I remember saying to my brother Kyle, "Somebody is really going to get hit today." And he said, "Yeah, it just kinda' feels like tornado weather, doesn't it?" Just a few hours later I saw a terrifying signature on radar headed for Murfreesboro, TN, where our youngest brother Seth goes to school. I called him and found out his teacher knew something was going on and got all the students into an underground tunnel. He never saw the funnel but said it was the most incredible storm he had ever seen in his life - just went on and on about it. He said it was like a flood, the worst lightning he'd ever seen, the biggest hail he'd ever seen, and the strongest winds he'd ever seen all put together. I was living in Arab and was sitting in my car tracking the stuff on my laptop outside their public shelter. They didn't open it until we went under a severe thunderstorm warning. I didn't stay up there to watch it because I was still freaked out about what a close call my brother in Mufreesboro had just had, but I remember them talking about how large the hail was. And Marshall County of course did get a tornado nearly as strong as the one in Murfreesboro - it even crossed Lake Guntersville and then came back on land to do more damage. What really disturbed me about that day was how complacent people were until things really started tearing loose. That tornado watch was issued as a "particularly dangerous situation", and yet my mother who also lives/works in Tennessee had gone to her workplace that had a basement and was appalled to see people coming in and out and driving around even with tornado sirens blaring once the severe storms were coming through. The two fatalities I heard about were apparently people who did the right thing. Days like that really make me wish there were more public storm shelters available where people could get underground for these stronger, longer-track tornadoes. It also really disappoints me how little public awareness there appears to be even in our high-tech age. Based on some of the behavior I observed that day and heard about from others, we're very lucky the death toll was not much higher.
ReplyDeleteGreat story Matt. You are right people around here do not really take severe weather seriously, when they should especially with all the Strong tornadoes we have around here. There are quiet a few tornado touchdowns that we get that is either outside of the tornado watch area or with little to no warning at all. We have more tornadoes that spin up during Severe Thunderstorm Warnings and do not get tornado warned until it is to late than just about anyone. So people needs to take every warning seriously before it is to late.
ReplyDelete