Blake Michaleski
EF4
Myself along with a few other meteorology students witnessed a weak tornado near the town of Bayou LaBatre, AL today. (If that town sounds familiar, think Forrest Gump)
The set up was classic fall Gulf Coast pattern with supercells, often embedded in rain, ahead of a developing squall line. We set up along coastal AL in Mobile Co and it actually reminiscent of hurricane chasing in that we setup along the coast and waited on these storms. Our storm that tornadoed maintained a nice couplet for quite a while. We were in heavy precip and fog for a long time. We set up just east of the path of the circulation. I figured that as the area of updraft neared, things would clear up a bit and we could discern some structure. I was right, all of a sudden the bas became visible still offshore. we bumped west a bit and actually crossed the projected path of the mesocyclone. then sitting just west of the path it came on shore as a fairly strong mesocyclone. I had a good view from a small bridge over Bayou Coden that had a shoulder. Looking east I saw the tornado spin up in the clearing of the road. and quickly lost visual because of the trees. I headed east to try and find a damage path as I was in contact with the local spotter net. I came across a very minimal path but an obvious path. Then I got word on the radio to head up a north road as there was damage.
So we were able to verify the TOR warning for NWS MOB (which is what most of our chasing here locally is, just in the CWA.) NWS MOB did a great job on this storm with plenty of lead time on the warning. I'm glad we could confirm it for them and get the warning out on down the line.
WKRG Channel 5 showed up right after the tornado as we were checking of people in the damaged area as there were no emergency personnel on site yet. No injuries thankfully. I did give them this video since this channel does alot to help our program. The tornado is extremely hard to see in the video, it was a small wispy vortex but was plain as day to the eye. You will see the obvious power flashes and after I say tornado, you can see some debris lofted in the air right after to the left.
Here's a link to the raw video.
http://wkrg.com/news/article/storm_chasers_catch_tornado_on_tape/6225/
The set up was classic fall Gulf Coast pattern with supercells, often embedded in rain, ahead of a developing squall line. We set up along coastal AL in Mobile Co and it actually reminiscent of hurricane chasing in that we setup along the coast and waited on these storms. Our storm that tornadoed maintained a nice couplet for quite a while. We were in heavy precip and fog for a long time. We set up just east of the path of the circulation. I figured that as the area of updraft neared, things would clear up a bit and we could discern some structure. I was right, all of a sudden the bas became visible still offshore. we bumped west a bit and actually crossed the projected path of the mesocyclone. then sitting just west of the path it came on shore as a fairly strong mesocyclone. I had a good view from a small bridge over Bayou Coden that had a shoulder. Looking east I saw the tornado spin up in the clearing of the road. and quickly lost visual because of the trees. I headed east to try and find a damage path as I was in contact with the local spotter net. I came across a very minimal path but an obvious path. Then I got word on the radio to head up a north road as there was damage.
So we were able to verify the TOR warning for NWS MOB (which is what most of our chasing here locally is, just in the CWA.) NWS MOB did a great job on this storm with plenty of lead time on the warning. I'm glad we could confirm it for them and get the warning out on down the line.
WKRG Channel 5 showed up right after the tornado as we were checking of people in the damaged area as there were no emergency personnel on site yet. No injuries thankfully. I did give them this video since this channel does alot to help our program. The tornado is extremely hard to see in the video, it was a small wispy vortex but was plain as day to the eye. You will see the obvious power flashes and after I say tornado, you can see some debris lofted in the air right after to the left.
Here's a link to the raw video.
http://wkrg.com/news/article/storm_chasers_catch_tornado_on_tape/6225/
