The ABC 33/40 Podcast is now available for Friday May 27.

As we wind down the month of May, we always like to think that the tornado “season” has abated. In a normal year that would be the case, although we all know we can have a tornado in any month of the year. However, our prime season is March, April and May. For some reason, May 27 stands out like a sore thumb when it comes to severe weather. Some extremely powerful tornadoes have occurred on that date, not only here, but in other parts of the country.

On May 27, 1917, major tornadoes devastated communities near the Walker-Jefferson County line NW of Birmingham. There were numerous deaths and injuries. The community of Bradford was almost wiped off the map. So many trees were uprooted that the town was completely isolated. They had to send runners on foot to get the word out and try to get help. Remember, this was when there was no such thing as radar, 911, cell phones, weather radio and even regular telephones were not that plentiful.

In more recent time, on May 27, 1973, a tornado touched down around 6:20 north of Demopolis. It began a long trek toward the NE and it would wind up being the longest track tornado on record in Alabama finally breaking up on the slopes of Mt. Cheaha in East Alabama. It moved across the SE part of Greensboro killing 1 person and injuring 72. Then it continued NE up Highway 25, knocking Centreville’s radar out of service. A few minutes later it plowed through the heart of Brent killing 5 persons and injuring 56. In Brent, 216 buildings were destroyed and 570 damaged. A little later, a separate tornado moved across the NE outskirts of Birmingham causing major damage in Center Point killing 1 person and injuring 76.

St. Louis was also devastated by a May 27 tornado that went through the heart of St. Louis and East St. Louis killing 255 persons and injuring 1,000. In 1997, and yes on May 27, a powerful tornado in Central Texas almost wiped out the town of Jarrell. 27 people aged 5 to 51 were killed in a town where there were few, if any, strangers. It was a strange tornado at times moving toward the SW at speeds as slow as 5 mph. It was so powerful that long stretches of asphalt were completely cleaned from highways.

The June issue of National Geographic is a must read if you want a lot of good information on the latest improvements in weather forecasting.

It goes into great depth discussing weather models. The models have improved greatly over the last several years. It points out what we have all known for years...the weather observation network needs to be far more dense (with more frequent reports) for models to really be at their best. In some parts of the world, weather observation sites are few and far between. Upper air soundings are even more scarce.

Be sure and see the photograph of a rotating wall cloud on page 95. It's a classic.

Also on page 110, there is a three-page pullout panel showing film clips from the first ever photographs inside a tornado funnel. A storm chaser on a dirt road in Iowa, plasced a camera probe in exactly the right spot and the center of the funnel came as close as 10 feet. A video of that is also on their web site.

Bill Murray will love that, but I wish SCB (Storm Chaser Bill) would have been the first to do that.

I thought it was interesting that NCEP's primary computer...a giant...is called "Blue," The supercomputer crunches numbers that stagger the imigination. It is not running at full speed yet. But by 2009, it will handle 8.6 trillion calculations in a single second! (Yes, that is with a T) It would take a hand-held calculator 15,000 years to process what "Blue" does in one second.

Let's call her a more affectionate name--"Ole Blue." A backup system in a different building is called "White."

Blows my little Molly-sized mind!

The Thursday morning web video is on the server:

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

**Note there will not be an afternoon web video today; I will be taking the day off from the TV shift. John Oldshue will be filling in for me on ABC 33/40 News tonight**

Dry weather continues through tomorrow with a gradual warming trend. The main forecast issues involve the Memorial Day weekend.

The 00Z run of the GFS is back to the look we have seen much of this week. A few showers possible on Saturday with a surface boundary drifting in here. Then, on Sunday, the best chance of showers shifting down into south Alabama as the front moves down to near U.S. 80.

Memorial Day looks very wet again, with the model developing a 1004 mb low over southern Arkansas in response to a short wave moving in from Texas. This would suggest wet and potentially stormy weather on Monday; NCEP is buying this as they now show a 3 inch bullseye over the next five days over central Alabama. That would sure help to knock out the rain deficit.

The latest GFS then moves the surface low to West Virginia, with drier air slipping in here on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. Then, another trough approaches with rain opportunities on the way up for Thursday and Friday, June 2-3.

J.B. Elliott is back in the saddle today, he will be writing the forecast packages this afternoon and tomorrow... will be interesting to see how the weekend scenario unfolds!