Well it has been exactly 1 week since North and Central Alabama was decimated by killer tornadoes. I remember it like it was just yesterday. I returned home from work at 6am (with confirmed tornadoes already in the Florence area as well as in Cullman and Arab)and just as a tornado warning is being issued for Madison County, and at that time I was not ready to chase (no gear was ready) so I passed on it which was a good choice since nothing materialized. So I called my two riders for the day and told them the game plan for the day, and as I picked up the first in Madison and headed towards Florence to get the second something caught my eye. I looked out my drivers side window and noticed a huge wall cloud (no warning at this time). I called the second rider and told her that we were on our way and should be there by 10am, well that all changed as the storm I was looking at just went tornado warned for Southern Limestone and Western Madison Counties and since I was still on Highway 72 we turned around and the chase was on. Boy did I mean CHASE this thing was moving at 70mph so we basically kept up with it sorta but never got ahead of it. We did manage to get into some hail but that was about it and soon after that the warning was cancelled. So we turned around and headed to Florence to pick up the rider (near 10:20am). As we arrived in Florence there was a nasty line moving in (nothing tornadic YET) moving to the east at 65mph so once again we were trying to stay out front to be able to see but we were eventually overtaken by tremendous amounts of rain and wind. As we are getting close to the City of Athens spotters report a funnel near Ripley some 10 miles west of Athens headed towards the Tanner area. So we turned down highway 31 and headed south to try and get ahead of it well we did just as we got to Highway 31 and Tanner Crossroads the circulation crosses in front of us (11:33am)and takes out the transformer and we observed some sporadic damage as we drove on thru. In my opinion it is a EF0 or weak EF1 (no survey is complete just yet)




Well as the morning wore on it got a little boring as there were a few tornado warnings up in Tennessee and far NE Madison County where if I am not mistaken a EF2 hit Lincoln and Moore Counties in Tennessee a little out of my target area. I had very high hopes with this system as it was a HIGH risk day, but it just seemed like at the time we were going to miss out again. Temps were in the mid 50s and dew points were low as well so I was wondering if I may have missed my target. We drove south into Cullman County Alabama and got well into the warm sector (temps were in the low to mid 80s at this time (2:30pm) as we are setting in Dodge City (who had no power due to the early morning tornadoes) I notice a nice little storm beginning to strengthen right along the warm front and also watching a decent cell in Walker County as well, we were in the perfect location to intercept either. Well the first cell goes tornado warned as spotters reported a large rotating wall cloud with a descending funnel near the community of Speake, so we let out flying north on interstate 65 by the time the cell gets to us it has weakened into just a picturesque shelf cloud.




Well since we are storm chasers seeing such a beautiful site was not all bad. I then looked at the radar (2:45pm) and the cell I was watching in Walker county had grew into a beast and was bearing down on the city of Cullman so we take off and head towards Morgan Coutny to intercept on the backside. Now at this time (3:10) extensive damage is reported in the town of Cullman and I receive a phone call from Kory Hartman to see if I am on the storm since my GPS is not working correctly. He tells me that ABC3340 has a very large tornado on the ground in the city of Cullman live on their tower cam, and I tell him I am about to intercept on Highway 67 near the Hulaco/Joppa communities. Then about 3:15 we have the beast cross in front of us.


After videoing the tornado for a short while we kicked into rescue mode as the tornado tore thru some houses and mobile homes trapping a few people with debris blocking roads, access to homes. Although no one died at this location as we were there, there were 3 mobile homes that were completely destroyed ans well as 2 well built homes, and there was a local preacher and his wife that lived in one of the mobile homes that was wiped out that were missing for sometime. As of right now I am unaware of them ever being found, I sure hope they have been.







After we were there for a while there was another tornado warning as we got back into the jeep we observed a large rain wrapped tornado cross at almost the same exact spot as the one in the video (it was raining way to hard to hang out the window for video of this one). After an hour or so there numerous rescue units arrived on scene so with everyone at our location in good hands, we headed out to intercept another cell heading into Madison County towards the City of Madison. This tornado happened to be rain wrapped but you can clearly see it cross the highway in front of us. It done very minimal damage as it was over an open field except for knocking over a few power poles and snapping a few trees.






It was only after I called it a day as another tornado hit near my home and I returned to be with my family that I found out about the large tornado that was tearing through Limestone and Madison Counties. (I got on the wrong storm, both looked good but one was the beast). I want to send a prayer up to those who lost there lives as well as to all those affected in anyway. To those that are helping with the recovery in anyway THANK YOU could never be enough to show how much you are appreciated. Stay tuned for updates as it looks quiet for the next couple weeks. More damage pictures are on our facebook page Tennessee Valley Storm Trackers.