04/10/09 REPORTS:AL/TN

[Jeff Russell]

Had a funnel cloud pass just south of me in Rainsville, AL. Damage in Powell just west from same cell. Saw 2 houses destroyed and car upside down mangled on HWY 35 in Powell.

More later.

edit: no injuries reported from houses, unknown about car

 

[Wes Carter]

Drove up to Murfreesboro, TN on I-24 from Manchester. Noticed wall cloud approaching from the West so I took the Joe Young Parkway exit and parked in an industrial park to video. The whole thing had scud forming underneath it and rising and rotating. One formed a very nice funnel cloud that briefly touched down near HWY 41 (Manchester Highway). I wasn't sure when I watched it if it touched down because the condensation funnel did not reach the ground. However, after it passed I drove over towards where I thought it was an there were several trees uprooted.

The same storm moved on up towards town and did some damage according to the Heart Of Tennessee SKYWARN Net. I was working for the newspaper so I went on up to where there was more damage to get some shots. After checking in with Incident Command and getting instructions I went into the affected area. There were several homes flattened completely, but the debris was still on the foundation except for one house that was removed from it's foundation almost completely intact and set across the way in the neighbor's yard, whose house was undamaged. I posted some photos in another thread.

 

[Dave Marshall]

Caught 6 different storms, 3 North of Atlanta, 3 southwest of Macon, GA. The storms north of Atlanta were all along the I-75 corridor from Calhoun south to Acworth. The Calhoun storm rolled us, measured 80mph winds, quarter size hail, multiple small funnel clouds (a couple were gustnadoes, one was definitely not). We had a transformer about a block from us explode in the thick of the storm, and a few minutes later found a billboard that had been blown into I-75 blocking traffic on both sides of the interstate.

We intercepted another small supercell that dropped a tornado in Rome. It produced a couple of very classic (and almost invisible due to terrain) wall clouds before outrunning us in the hills northeast of Marrietta. It produced just after we broke off and headed south (of course).

We spotted one of the most textbook supercells leaving Montgomery and headed for Columbus, GA about 90 minutes to our southwest, and managed to race half way across the state and wind up right on its southern flank. It produced two well defined wall clouds and a funnel, along with a spectacular lightning show, as it moved east it lost some of its strength, and we broke off in favor of another cell that had popped up behind it. We stuck with this one for some time and observed a sustained wall cloud for well over 15 minutes, including one lightning illuminated funnel (which would later touch down in Cobb, GA). About the time that produced, we moved slightly to the west to catch a third and final storm moving through Americus, which also produced a series of well illuminated wall clouds.

On the way home we encountered the damage from the Cobb storm. Trees up to 24" snapped 15' above the ground, tops of trees thrown 20-30 yards from their still-standing base, power poles snapped, and lots of superficial damage to structures along a broken 1/2 long path.

All in all a hell of a day. Its exceedingly uncommon to see classic supercells like this in Georgia, much less a dozen in a day. NWS Peachtree City is always slow confirming its tornado reports. As of 9am EDT Saturday, they're only claiming about 4 in their CWA, with a grand total of 41 across the country. I expect that number will rise considerably as PTC confirms a few more touchdowns.

So we had a Palm Sunday outbreak in '65. Now we've got a Good Friday outbreak.

 

[Tyler Yarnell]

I ended up seeing one funnel cloud and another rapidly rotating wall cloud.

Ended up on the cell with the nice couplet over Wahalla SC. I wasn't impressed with the rotation, not to mention the road system was horrible in extreme NW SC, so I tried to get back to I-85 in quick order, was doing pretty well but got stuck at a road detour that took me back in to the core of the storm system. Got back to the interstate in time to see a funnel cloud on the the tornado warned storm that hit Anderson, SC within a few hundred yard of the car. So I ended up having to deal with traffic on I-85 and by then was too tired to deal with getting on anything else. I will have to see how the pictures turned out.

 

[Jeff Russell]

MODS: Not sure if I should have edited my first post.

Overall a great chase for someone still learning.

I was at a boat ramp on Weiss Lake in Centre, AL checking data. Decided to make a run to the NW to intercept cells moving south of Huntsville. While in Rainsville a cell moving through Marshall county displayed a nice hook and appeared to be intensifying. I waited for this cell.

This cell produce a possible tornado west of me in Powell. I observed damage afterwards. I believe this tornado dissipated and a new wall cloud formed south. This is the wall cloud that passed through Rainsville. I saw a brief funnel cloud pass pretty much overtop me and continue NE. Rapid rotation with this wall cloud was observed. Question: Can this happen in this short of distance and time? 3-5 miles/5-7 mins? Based on video, the direction is wrong for this to be the same tornado. Unless it made a 1or 2 mile jog to the southeast.

Observed another wall cloud around the Leesburg, Centre area. Too far away to tell if it was rotating. Saw another wall cloud in Piedmont, AL. Again no observed rotation.

Best photogenic storm of the day was in Oak Level, AL. Believe Brett Adair was on the west side of this storm. Rapidly rotating meso. This meso had either virga or rain wrapping around the edge of the lowering. Why this storm did not produce, I don’t know. Had a brief funnel pass north of me. I followed this storm for the next hour or so. Great features but no tornado that I ever witnessed.

Photos can be seen here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/album.php?aid=2012368&id=1202536036&ref=mf

Jeff

 

[Terry Tyler]

Id have to agree with Jeff about this event being good for someone still learning. Initially, i had planned to go south and wait for storms to build in. Having watched how the previous night unfolded, i thought that we might get something good there and i could follow it into AL so i drove down to Starkville, MS and waited for a while. There was over 2500SBCAPE and sig tornadoes over 8, plus the terrain was good. After waiting for almost 45 minutes, it soon became obvious to me that i had made a major mistake and storms were not forming that far south for some reason or another. I immediatly headed back up to Tupelo. There i tracked a lone cell coming out of southwestern Pontotoc and met it just outside of tupelo.

This is a photo of the storm early in its life about 20 mins before it achieved its tornado warning. Note that little RFD cut in there.

The storm improved rapidly and became tornado warned. I made major mistake and tried to race it east on 78 but looking back, it was another critical mistake because of how fast it was moving. I had a pretty good view of it the whole time i was on 78 and the storm possessed a large, broad wallcloud. It was really elevated, or high off the ground so i didnt think it had much chance of making one at the time.

I made another major mistake and took hwy23 outside of fulton, ms north towards redbay, AL to intercept it. I was flying down that road trying to meet it, and i came extremely close when i made it to red bay. You could see some amazing shapes to the storm, but it was quickly cut short when the hook obscured all visibility of the storm, and i was caught directly behind it. Reminded me alot of the 2-18-09 demopolis storm in that aspect.

I hit about 3 stop lights on highway 23 heading E out of redbay and was trapped behind a mass of cars. I passed them and kept going, but i wasnt making any progress. It began hooking out pretty bad near russellville, and i could see my little GPS icon go right inside of the hook, but when the radar updated, it was just as far ahead of me as it was to begin with. I followed the storm all the way to russellville, AL and then i gave up following it and called it a day. It left an extensive swath of hail with some hail-fog that was pretty cool. Most of it was nickel to half-dollar size that i saw. It nailed a bunch of construction workers...Good thing they had their hard hats on.

What aggravated me the most is i didnt get a whole lot of photos of the initial storm structure because i was so flustered. The storms moved so fast, and i didnt want to stop on the highway and possibly sacrifice distance to get pictures. Looking back, i never should have followed it into NW AL and kept the view i had from the tenn tom waterway. Thats got to be some of the worst chasing country available.

 

[Dave Gallaher]

Due to having to report for work in Birmingham, I was unable to make a longer chase, but did intercept two warned cells that crossed the Huntsville metro, both with considerable hail. The second storm, which was TOR-warned, stopped all traffic with a deluge of hail up to golf ball size, with occasional impacts that were much larger, though I didn't see them on the ground.

The hail was flowing across the road from the southeast to northwest. This went on for about three minutes, then after a lessening, resumed with full and possible greater intensity, blowing from northwest to southeast. From other reports I've seen, a wall cloud passed close by this location. I don't know if we were directly under that circulation or not, but the change in direction of the falling hail was pronounced.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Log with photos and video from Friday in KY and WV:



http://stormhighway.com/april102009.shtml