A deadly night of tornadoes across northern Texas and southern Oklahoma on April 9th in 1947. One supercell thunderstorm produced six twisters along a 221 mile corridor across the two states. About 5:45 p.m., a tornado touched down White Deer, Texas. There the tornado derailed twenty-one cars of a Santa Fe freight train. It grazed the towns of Pampa and Miami. Moving along the Santa Fe line, the tornado trained its sights on Glazier, Texas. Eight people perished in the tiny town where only one building was left standing. Next in the path of the deadly storm was Higgins, TX, where twenty-four people were killed.

The storm raced into Oklahoma, where it fell with hellish fury on the town of Shattuck, leaving twenty people dead there. The death-dealing funnel was saving its greatest wrath for the town of Woodward, OK, which lay unwittingly in its path. As the tornado approached Woodward, it had swelled in size to two miles wide and was moving at up to 70 mph. The twister leveled one-third of the town, killing 116 people. This made it the deadliest tornado ever in the history of Oklahoma. The devastation was followed by a major fire.

The Woodward tornado is one of the widest in U.S. history, and indeed may be the widest because it is difficult to determine the extent of the damage path over the sparsely populated area. A total of 169 people were killed and 980 injured on the tragic night.

Captain Roy L. Thrush, a pilot for TWA, was flying over northwestern Oklahoma when he heard calls for help from the ground in the tornado-stricken areas of Gage and Woodward where all communications had been wiped out. He relayed emergency requests for doctors, nurses, and medical supplies to Oklahoma City.

Thanks to Chuck Biddinger for these images of damage in the Huffman, Roebuck, and Shadywood areas of east Birmingham...

I received this note during our weather coverage last night from someone named "Barry":

"WOLF WOLF. We have heard all day about the terible weather we are suppose to have.

Let me guess-------- I am sure that Haleyville is not as bad as you are reporting- it never is!

PLEASE LET IT GO!"

I guess Barry isn't interested in seeing all of these images. Nor the dozens of wind damage and tornado reports from around North Alabama last night. There were actually very, very few "weather coverage" hate mails last night. Barry was trying his best to keep it up for them.

Check out Chuck's pictures:

000
NWUS54 KBMX 082247
LSRBMX

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT...CORRECTED
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BIRMINGHAM AL
547 PM CDT SAT APR 08 2006

..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON...
..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
..REMARKS..

1007 PM TORNADO HALEYVILLE 34.24N 87.62W
04/07/2006 F1 WINSTON AL NWS STORM SURVEY

F1 TORNADO PRODUCED MAJOR DAMAGE TO THE WINDWOOD HOTEL
AND A GAS STATION IN HALEYVILLE. NUMEROUS TELEPHONE POLES
AND TREES DOWN BLOCKING 4 LANES OF HWY 13. DAMAGE PATH
LENGTH 4 MILES AND WIDTH 150 YARDS.

There seems to be a lot of discussion generated by the issuance of a high risk outlook for a chunk of the Southeast US by the Storm Prediction Center Thursday and Friday. And there seems to be two opinions - you think was a bust or you think it was not a bust. So here's a few thoughts on it.

It is interesting to note that to the best of my knowledge, SPC had never issued a high risk outlook for Day 2 before Thursday. So their forecast was a historic first!

At this writing, there were 691 reports of severe weather yesterday including 48 tornado reports, 141 wind reports, and 502 hail reports. Those 502 hail reports included 26 with 2+ inch hail size. I think people can agree that this was a significant event.

So before going on, let's take a look at the definition of a high risk. This definition is cut and pasted verbatim just as it appears on the SPC web site from Section 3 of their Frequently Asked Questions page:
The HIGH risk area almost always means a major severe weather outbreak is expected, with great coverage of severe weather and enhanced likelihood of extreme severe (i.e., violent tornadoes or extreme convective wind events over a large area). Within a high risk area, expect at least 20 tornadoes with at least 2 of them rated F3+, or an extreme derecho causing 50+ widespread wind events (50+) with numerous higher end wind (80+ mph) and structural damage reports.

Trying to be as objective as I can, it seems to me that the established criteria was met. I would qualify the events of yesterday as a major severe weather outbreak with great coverage of severe weather. I'm fairly confident from the video I have seen that we will see at least one tornado rated an F3 - the one that struck Gallatin, TN. There could be others because all of the video I've seen was from Gallatin, so I simply cannot say about any of the other tornadoes that occurred in Tennessee.

I expect that of the 48 tornado reports, some of which are different reports from different locations along the same tornado path, the final number will be around 30. That certainly qualifies as the expection from a high risk area. I would also opine that the people in Tennessee would call their weather yesterday extreme.

There definitely were structural damage reports. This was not a derecho event, so that qualification does not apply to yesterday.

I said I wanted to be objective, so I have to note that the high risk area, and I'm using the 1300Z outlook from April 7, 2006, came close to Gallatin, TN, but did not include that location. My opinion is that if you think that negates all the other factors, then you may be a perfectionist. After all, the high risk area was surrounded by a moderate risk area and the high risk area was very close to the Gallatin, TN, area.

Finally, I tried an experiment to overlay the 1300Z, April 7, 2006, outlook with the storm reports. Here is the map which I think shows a high degree of correlation between the definition and what occurred.

SPC has excellent expertise in severe weather forecasting. They do nothing else but focus on severe weather. They are not perfect as no meteorologist is. We all have our share of forecasts that go awry. And when/if they bust, I will be right there to take them to task. But I do not believe that they should take any heat on this one. Their high risk outlooks on Day 1 and Day 2 were on target.

Be sure to scroll down to see the graphic.

-Brian-

Overlay of the 13Z Day 1 Outlook, April 7, 2006, and the SPC Storm Reports.

Thanks to David Morris, who sent in these images of damage in Gardendale. This damage was to businesses along U.S. 31 and Main Street in Gardendale:

The NWS Storm Survey team send out to Gardendale and Fultondale has concluded that the damage there was the result of straight line winds from that bow echo that blew through the area early this morning.

We should have a full report later this afternoon. Additional teams went to Marion and Winston Counties.

The Saturday video map discussion is on the server at:

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

After not getting home until 4 am this morning, I'm finally up and percolating though I'm not sure I'm really clicking on all cylinders yet! Wow, what a day yesterday was. One of my burning questions is know why the severe weather took so long to get into and through Central Alabama. One of the first supercells to develop began in Arkansas and moved northeast just south of Memphis dropping large hail (half dollar size) around 10 am. That cell along with several others produced extensive damage in Middle Tennessee especially in the Gallatin area. News reports this morning still indicate 11 deaths in Tennessee. Tennessee has been very hard hit with two signicant tornado outbreaks in less than a week. But the severe thunderstorms inched eastward until around 11 pm when eastward movement became more evident. The event became primarily a rain event after 3 am.

The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) severe storm log showed 691 severe weather reports from 7 am Friday to 7 am Saturday including 48 tornado reports. The number of actual tornadoes will probably be less than that since some of the reports were about the same tornado from different locations. It would appear at this point that 2006 may be headed for some high numbers in both tornado occurrences and tornado deaths. I can hardly wait until some idiot suggests that those numbers are caused by global warming!

A small band of showers was moving through Central Alabama at this writing, but that should be the last of the rain for the weekend. In fact, for the upcoming week I expect to see mostly dry conditions with only a slim chance of rain on Wednesday.

High pressure settles in across the Southeast US tonight and Sunday. With it, we'll see some fine Spring days over the upcoming week with cool mornings (lows in the 40s and 50s) and mild afternoons (highs in the 70s). The high stays with us as the big high is pinched with a center over New Orleans by Thursday. This keeps the Gulf shut down so much of the upcoming week will see great weather.

No long range looks today. Hope you and your families have a great weekend. I'm grateful that we are not counting deaths in Alabama today. We were certainly fortunate that the events in Alabama did not unfold like they did in Tennessee with the positive environment we had yesterday and last night.

-Brian-

After 25 hours with no sleep, it is time to hit the sack

At 4:25 am, the main thunderstorms remaining over Alabama were clustered over about 5 counties in the center of the state.

Still producing heavy amounts of rain. Slowly diminishing as they move slowly east and southeast,

And much, much lightning.

Awesome lightning. How you ever seen a prettier display?

The day began early for me on Friday. Knowing that we would be working on severe weather, I got into the office early and made a meeting for breakfast. I met John Oldshue at ABC3340 in Alabaster and we headed out for Tuscaloosa about 10:30 a.m. We arrived there in time for John to do a live shot for the noon news.

As we left Birmingham, skies were cloudy, but as we headed southwestward, we began to see increasing breaks in the clouds. Those breaks were courtesy of a bunch of dry air that moved in during the morning hours. With the increased insolation, temperatures began to rise. Cumulus clouds began to form, indicating that the atmosphere was becoming more unstable. Temperatures were able to rise into the lower to middle and sometimes upper 80s during the afternoon.

We headed north out of Tuscaloosa during the early afternoon and drifted north to Fayette. We did not have service on my cellular data card, so posting to the blog and gathering data was impossible, Wety made it to Winfield, where photographer Bill Castle set up live shots fir the five and six o’clock news.

Then it was on to Hamilton, to intercept two impressive storms that were moving out of Mississippi. The second, which was over Chickasaw County was the more dangerous storm. Three law enforcement officers joined us from our vantage point and we appreciated their company. One of them was very worried about his wife and children, who were at home in Hackleburg. Fortunately, the tornado that eventually occurred missed his home. But it shows how stressful it can be for a public safety official who is on duty in the proximity of a deadly storm.

We watched in awe as the storm passed just north of the city of Hamilton. It was an impressive storm. We tried to stay out in front of the storms as they finally rolled into Birmingham.