2/17/08 NOW: LA/MS/AL/FL/GA

[Heidi Farrar]

Things are heating up in the Slight Risk area of the gulf coast region. A tornado watch was issued for this area several hours ago, and numerous tornado warnings have been issued across Alabama and extending into the Florida panhandle. One cell in particular is creating a problem in the panhandle:

SEVERE WEATHER STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MOBILE AL
1222 PM CST SUN FEB 17 2008

SANTA ROSA FL-
1222 PM CST SUN FEB 17 2008

...A TORNADO WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 1245 PM CST FOR NORTHERN
SANTA ROSA COUNTY...

THIS TORNADO HAS REPORTEDLY PRODUCED STRUCTURAL DAMAGE. MORE
DETAILS AS THEY BECOME AVAILABLE.

AT 1218 PM CST...THE PUBLIC REPORTED A TORNADO. THIS TORNADO WAS
NOW ABOUT 5 MILES NORTHEAST OF CHUMUCKLA...MOVING NORTHEAST AT 35
MPH.

 

[Jonathan Williams]

Apparently "Significant Damage" from a tornado in Dallas County AL according to: WSFA news 12 Montgomery Alabama.

 

[Adam Lucio]

Unrelated but a very brief yet intense low topped line segment produced winds briefly over 35mph and some pea size hail.

SVR warnings in northern IN.

Pretty dynamic system!

 

[Dave_Hilbert]

Montgomery AL WSFA-TV now live streaming.

http://www.wsfa.com/

 

[HAltschule]

Large & Dangerous Tornado

I have been following this long-lived tornado producing thunderstorm that is now entering Coffee County, AL. NWS states they are being bombarded with damage reports and currently have a "Large and Dangerous tornado on the ground" that has produced significant damage. Ft. Rucker, AL radar is best to view right now.

 

[Jonathan Williams]

That storm seems to be long lived. I have also been following it for about the last hour and a half. It has shown had a nice couplet almost the whole track of the storm. This storm is very dangerous.

 

[Scott Lincoln]

Too bad the Fort Rucker radar doesn't have a realtime L2 feed over UNIDATA. I'm sure it would be a great view in GR2Analyst. Anyone know if the military L2 sites end up having their radar data archived for later retrieval?

Troy, AL (pop 14000) seems to be the biggest city in the path of this storm.

 

[Scott Lincoln]

...or confirmation of a wall cloud that people think is a tornado on the ground. Regardless, looks like a strong storm and has history of damage. Even though its not as much of an isolated supercell, I'd also be a bit worried about that storm west of Montgomery heading in the city's general direction. It looked like southern storm was heading towards Troy, but turned to the right a bit, which could happen with the Montgomery storm.

 

[Scott Lincoln]

Tornado warning for the Montgomery storm now including the city.

The storm near Troy and Brundige, AL, seems to be strengthening, although it looks to pass south of the bigger city. Although smaller, Brundige still looks like it has several hundred people, and there are plenty of businesses and houses in areas between the cities.

 

[Scott Lincoln]

Storm heading into the northern burbs of Montgomery now has a confirmed tornado. Its headed for Prattville (pop ~25,000). I'd say if a tornado is on the ground it will likely pass just south of the center of Prattville, and just north of the city of Montgomery. It might pass along the river where there are not many structures.

Tornado emergency for the northern suburbs of Montgomery just southeast of Prattville... and WSFA keeps going on about how the storm is not confirmed... ug!

*I like how the NWS says the storm is capable of producing violent tornadoes. Not "strong to violent", just "violent". It definitely doesn't look like that at all, and right after the issuance of the tornado emergency the couplet began to weaken. I'm wonder what they used to hype up the wording so much?

 

[Jeff Snyder]

A nice low CAPE, very strong shear tornado event in progress. OVC to BKN skies have kept temps down a bit, and the latest SPC/RUC Mesonanalysis graphics continue to depict only about 250 j/kg SBCAPE near Atlanta, increasing to 500-~800 j/kg nearer the Florida peninsula. However, some discrete thunderstorms developed ahead of the pre-frontal squall line and appear to have harnessed the very strong low-level vertical wind shear and streamwise vort to develop deep mesocyclones and tornadoes. With such strong near-surface shear (300-500 m2/s2 0-1km SRH), there should continue to be a significant tornado thread with any relatively discrete storm that stays ahead of the line. In addition, embedded mesos are appearing in the line, so a tornado threat will exist with the broken line convection as well. Precip is starting to develop east of the stronger convection northeast of Montgomery, so the strongest tornado threat may lie across far southeastern AL and southwestern GA (and the FL pen, I suppose).

EDIT: An impressive and strong mesocyclone continues on the storm NNE of the KEOX radar site near the AL/GA state line. The 1.5 degree SRV scan (~3.5km AGL at that range) indicates that the maximum in the outbound-inbound couplet is approximately 5 miles wide, with the entire meso perhaps as wide as 10 miles.

 

[Heidi Farrar]

Damage reports coming out of the Prattville area at this time with reports of a "confirmed tornado" from WSFA.

 

[Scott Lincoln]

The damage in Prattville was reported near Cobbs Ford Rd. Looks like a not-so-urban area near the interstate. Not a big dense residential area, thank goodness. Hopefully not much else major damage.

 

[Scott Lincoln]

Tornado warning for Metro Atlanta. Storm looks like it might have a hook on L2 radar, but rotation is not particularly strong at this time. Right now I'd say there might be a weak tornado possible along that line as it moves into the southern half of Atlanta metro....

 

[Jonathan Williams]

Yes, very weak rotation outside of Atlanta. No reports of a tornado near the metro. Heading towards the Metro and warnings are only Doppler indicated. News 11 in Atlanta has not has any Tornado reports but are streaming live till the warning expires at about 5:15 unless its extended.