Here is a summary of Alabama severe weather reports from last Friday (and during the pre-dawn hours Saturday) from the NWS offices in Huntsville and Birmingham. Additional reports will probably be added tonight or later in the week since damage was so widespead.

TORNADOES (16):

Hamilton: F1 tornado; two serious injuries
Gardendale F1 tornado
Haleyville: F1 tornado
Ohatchee: F1 tornado
Childersburg: F0 tornado
Cullman: F1 tornado
Danville: F1 tornado;
Hazel Green: F0 tornado
Cherokee: F0 tornado
Tuscumbia: F1 tornado
Leighton: F1 tornado
Hatton: F0 tornado
Mount Hope: F0 tornado
Caddo: F0 tornado
I-565 (8 miles west of Huntsville): F0 tornado
Decatur (2 miles east) F0 tornado

STRAIGHT LINE WIND DAMAGE:

Sylvan Springs
Pleasant Grove
Birminghamport
Gardendale/Mount Olive; 1 injury
Hueytown; one injury
Roebuck/Huffman
Berry
Samantha
Sterrett
Fayette
Vernon

The Tuesday afternoon map discussion video is on the server:

http://beta.abc3340.com/weather/video.hrb

Talk about a beautiful spring day. Just got back from speaking to the kids at Mount Olive Elementary School; it just doesn't get much better than this. By the way, there was considerable wind damage up in Mt. Olive; lots of clean up operations going on today. I saw many trees down on homes, and lots of roof damage. Looked like winds in the 70 mph range...

DRY WEEK: Looks like we will enjoy dry weather through the Easter weekend. A system will pass well to the north of here on Wednesday; we might see some scattered clouds but no rain. Temperatures will continue to warm up; we will be in the 80s over the latter half of the week and over the weekend.

We do note a pretty strong negative tilt shortwave coming out across the plains over the weekend; but it looks like that one will head for the Great Lakes and weaken. We might see some rain from that early next week, but for now it doesn't look like a big event.

LONG RANGE: The GFS is hinting at a fairly decent rain event here in the April 22-23 time frame, but confidence is now. Model consistency is not good in the longer range. Nothing really looks like a significant severe weather setup over the next two weeks, but that can change quickly. This is April in Alabama, you know.

Look for the 2nd and 3rd graders from Mt. Olive Elementary on the KIDCAM today on ABC 33/40 News at 5:00! The next map discussion video will be posted by 7:00 a.m. tomorrow.

Time to be a Monday Morning Quarterback on Friday's severe weather event....

SCHOOL CLOSING EARLY: Seems like lots of anger came from parents and others over many Alabama school systems closing early Friday due to the threat of severe weather. Let me say up front I appreciate school administrators showing concern over the threat of severe weather, and putting the safety of students and teachers at the highest level if priority. I understand the thought process; you don't want a child, or anyone else, on a bus or other type of vehicle during a severe weather outbreak. Get them home before severe storms develop.

But, long time readers here know I am not a big fan of closing schools on severe weather days. The greatest problem is that a large percentage of Alabama children in rural systems live in mobile homes, and a most of those who die from tornadoes here in Alabama are in either mobile homes or vehicles. School buildings, generally speaking, offer excellent protection for children, especially when compared to mobile homes.

That issue aside, most people had problems with kids being sent home on a sunny, warm day. We expected MOST of the big problems after dark; here is a quote from the blog discussion Thursday of last week:

"I still think most of the severe weather problems in Alabama will come in the 6:00 p.m. until 3:00 a.m. time frame (tomorrow night into the pre-dawn hours Saturday), but a few isolated afternoon storms cannot be ruled out, and those could become severe. Go, as a broad-brush statement, the general risk time here will be from 3:00 p.m. through 3:00 a.m. "

You can read that entire post here:

http://www.jamesspann.com/bmachine/post/wxtalk/3997/High-Severe-Weather-Risk-Ahead

I don't know how most school systems get their weather information; I would imagine they get a briefing from local emergency management agencies; who in turn get their weather from the National Weather Service.

Bottom line is while I would not have dismissed early if I were calling the shots (for the reasons above), I APPLAUD the school systems for their "safety first" attitude. Sure, I am sure they will get the angry phone calls and nasty e-mails, but that is just part of the game.

STORM PREDICTION CENTER: These guys, generally speaking, do a great job. I think the high risk forecast was as good one; although I suggest the idea of forecasting a high risk a day in advance might need to be reconsidered. You cannot look at the damage in Alabama, and especially Tennessee, and call it a bad outlook. I am sure many people not in Birmingham (but in other parts of the Deep South) thought the high risk April 8, 1998 was a bad outlook because they didn't have a strong/violent tornado in their community. We tend to be pretty self-centered these days; "if it doesn't happen in my neighborhood then I really don't care". See Brian Peters excellent post:

http://www.jamesspann.com/bmachine/post/wxtalk/4042/High-Risk-Bust-or-Brilliant

TV COVERAGE: There was very little "hate mail" on this one; probably because we didn't cut off a popular program. Probably not many fans of the Ginzu Knife or Pocket Fisherman informercials that run in the middle of the night. I do want to thank our news department; their support was remarkable. Seemed like reporters and live trucks were everywhere. I will never forget Chris Tatum doing a live report from Walker County with hail bouncing off his body!

Amazing to see the ratings; at 1:30 a.m. Saturday ABC 33/40 had a 19.5 rating and a 43 share! That was considerably more than all of the other local stations combined. Once again, we thank you for your confidence in our coverage. We take the responsibility seriously.

I was also amazed by the response from people watching our live stream on the Internet. Even had one note from a viewer in Germany. Amazing.

Our new SKYCAM cameras were extremely useful. Sure, they don't show too much at night, but I thought the images were simply fantastic. By the way, you can see still images from our cameras on the web now:

http://www.abc3340.com/static/skycams/skycamsmain.html

I will take a look at our coverage and see what went right, and went wrong. As always, there is room for improvement.

INTERNET COVERAGE: We are aware of the problem with the blog and the ABC 33/40 web site slowing to a crawl Friday and Friday night. We simply were not able to handle the volume of traffic. I will be working on a solution for the blog in coming weeks; we have plenty of bandwidth... the problem is with the blog pulling files from a database (MySQL) everytime someone reads the blog.

Was this the last big severe weather threat of the tornado season? Probably not; while the weather looks quiet for the next couple of weeks, we still have a long way to go. For now we need to pray for our friends up in Tennessee. We sure understand their pain from our experiences here over the years.

The Monday morning map discussion video is on the server:

http://beta.abc3340.com/weather/video.hrb

All is quiet in the weather office this morning; and the week ahead looks uneventful. I think most folks will welcome that after last Friday's severe weather event.

All of the main weather action will shift to the northern half of the nation this week; looks like the westerlies won't allow wave action to impact Alabama to any significant degree. A cold front at mid-week should remain north of the state.

With rising heights, temperatures will continue to warm up, and we should be in the 80s by the end of the week.

WEEKEND PEEK: For now the weather looks great on Saturday and Sunday with ample sunshine and highs in the 80 to 85 degree range.

LONG RANGE: The GFS really isn't suggesting any serious weather problems for the next 15 days. We might have some rain in about a week, but with little upper support severe weather issues don't look likely. Other rain opportunities in the April 18-25 time frame don't look especially robust.

DAMAGE PICTURES: Scroll down to see images from the damage in the Birmingham metro area, or click on this direct link:

http://www.jamesspann.com/bmachine/cat/wxtalk/15/Pictures

THOUGHTS: I will write a post a little later today looking back at Friday's severe weather event. Some thoughts on the SPC, school closing early, and the general public response.

TODAY: I will be speaking at Mount Olive Elementary School today; I will have the afternoon map discussion posted by 3:30 this afternoon!