Tennessee Valley Storm Trackers: Happy New Year!!!!!! One To Remember.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Happy New Year!!!!!! One To Remember.

Wow what a New Years Eve. Mother Nature decided to have her on party this year (with 40 reported tornadoes). It all began during the predawn hours on Friday when a tornado tore thru Cincinnati Arkansas killing 3 people. This tornado has preliminary rated an EF3 with maximum estimated winds of about 140 mph. This EF rating is primarily based on severe damage to 3 permanent homes and a destroyed metal (volunteer fire department) building system in Cincinnati. This was a long track tornado as it was on the ground for 21 miles and was 500 yds wide at its widest point. You can see the radar images below. Another sever tornado was in the St Louis metro hitting Cedar Hill, St Louis City, and then to Sunset Hills. This tornado was also preliminarily rated EF3 but NWS St Louis may upgrade to at the least EF4. No track length or width is available at this time. The NWS will be back out Saturday to finish their assessment and more to come.

Then later in the night Mother Nature unleashed her fury on the Deep South as tornadoes raged across portions of Central and Southern Mississippi where the NWS WFO in Jackson had to take shelter from a beast of a storm the tore thru the area. With with lots of damage being reported in the area the town of Byram was hit extremely hard and the local police put the whole town on lockdown over night due to extensive damage. Click the title above for a radar loop of the cell that tore thru Jackson and caused the NWS to take cover. I went out around 2am when the line was progressing east thru the Valley to try and intercept some hail but it all fizzled out, which is what we predicted. So below is some lightning grabs as Mother Nature had her own fireworks for the New Year. Also below are some radar grabs of the most intense of the storm as it rolled out of Macon Ms into Pickens County Ala, and the of the storm the produced the killer Arkansas tornado.
Be sure to check out the radar loop of the Jackson Ms storm by clicking the title above.