Good afternoon, everyone. Bitterly cold air continues to push into the region and will do so through the middle of the week. Beyond that, things turn very active once again with a couple of systems that have strong to severe thunderstorm look to them.
In the short-term… It’s the heart of winter. Temps are struggling into the 20s this afternoon with single digit wind chills. A few snow showers and flurries will put down hit and run light accumulations in the east…
Another system dives from the northwest on Tuesday and could touch off additional snow showers and flurries. That’s showing up on the GFS…
The next system zips in here on Thursday and should have a streak of snow ahead of it, with some rain to end it on Friday…
Canadian
GFS
Temps surge behind that into the coming weekend and that may set the stage for high winds and strong storms as a system ejects from the plains into the Great Lakes…
Enjoy the day and take care.
I’ll take little snow any day over what happened to Alabama.
That was terrible !!! Weren’t those people warned ?
Warning’s were in place, but when you’re in mobile home/manufactured home parks like the 2 that were hit, there’s often not a lot that can be done, and in all seriousness, I have relatives that live in AL(closer to Huntsville), and believe it or not, you’d be hard pressed to even FIND ANY home, brick,mobile or otherwise that even have basements or tornado shelters at all-I’ve been there once and in all honesty, the homes down there aren’t exactly what I would call “quality-built”…just thrown up on slabs of concrete. It’s the same out in OK where my aunt lives…they’ve lived there since ’72 and when they built their new big home, they didn’t put a storm shelter in the ground until about 5 yrs. later. Nobody out there builds homes with basements, but I think more storm shelters are being constructed since the OKC/Moore twisters in ’99 and ’11. I found it unbelievable myself. I think Lee Co. AL had 2 tornadoes blow through almost in the same area within minutes of each other yesterday, at least I think that’s the way I read it. The big one was an EF-3, so those folks really didn’t stand a chance, and probably didn’t have enough advanced warning because that line of storms was booking it! 🙁 My heart goes out to them.
Yeah they were warned but there’s only so much a person can do. You have minutes not hours to make a life or death decision, unfortunately. Complete tragic situation.
Debbie, I have a book from the Huntsville 89′ tornado that the newspaper produced after the storm. Incredible damage. Talked with some AL folks on a message board yesterday. They say there are some neighborhoods with basements but not many on the outskirts of town. Sometimes the geology of the area prevents many from digging down due to bedrock or high water table like Joplin MO. That storm destroyed most of Joplin.
The ground in some parts of the country has a high water table or solid rock just below which makes basements very expensive if not impractical. Big issue in Joplin MO during the infamous 2011 tornado there. There can even be variations within a city. We only have a small crawlspace in our Nashville home, but it can still double as a tornado shelter. But my wife’s childhood home (and other adjacent houses) in her part Bowling Green didn’t even have that. Other areas of Bowling Green do have homes with basements. Again, depends on the ground below.
Speaking of shoddy construction, one Alabama house from yesterday was mostly intact but pushed far off its foundation which may be a sign of very poor anchoring.
Yep-the house my cousin lives in is fairly new(about 6-7 yrs?)and it looks solid in every way, but when we were there a couple yrs. ago it was windy and that thing literally shook like mine does when they do training at Knox. I kept asking them if the roof was gonna fly off! (btw; it’s one of these 5BR, 4BA brick and stone McMansions….)It just sounded like there wasn’t anything to it. I’ve been in double-wides that seemed safer in a storm.
Incidentally, one of the Lee County AL tornadoes has been upgraded to an EF4 and was nearly a mile wide. More loss of life from this one twister than all US tornadoes in 2017 and 2018 combined. 🙁 2018 was one of the most inactive tornado years in the country on record.
Tornado warning (radar indicated) was issued at 1:58 PM
Severe Weather Statement for confirmed tornado at 2:07
Severe Weather Statement for Tornado Emergency at 2:09 PM
Tornado hit Beauregard (per damage reports) at 2:20 PM and Smith’s Station at 2:25 PM
22 minutes lead time.
We won’t know details for a while, but the questions become: who didn’t heed the warnings? For those that did, did they have nowhere to go? The strength and size of this tornado might have put some people in a position where they just couldn’t do anything. Others might have been able to actually go somewhere, and simply didn’t.
But, we can at least say that the NWS was on this one and did the best they could.
Only thing bad with spring all the severe weather. Have family that lives in West Liberty Ky that was devastated several years ago by a f3. My heart also aches for those who lost lives in Alabama.
Worst winter I can remember in a very long time…just over it and ready for spring. As a winter lover I usually hate to see it go but not this year.
Going to Vegas in 11 days, and can’t wait to enjoy some nice weather for 5 straight days.