4/19/06 NOW: AL/GA

[Dave Gallaher]

TOR Watch 210 has just gone up for east-central Alabama and western Georgia until 0z. I have been viewing the progress of the svr-warned cb in north Cullman County from my house (60+ miles NNE) noting a good overshoot on the main updraft. Radar indicates some outflow boundaries in Cullman and Morgan counties from the noon storms, and I wondered what the possibility might be for this big hailer as it impacts this area. Storm motion is reported to be 5 mph, nearly stationary for the moment.

I will head to Guntersville, AL shortly---as previously, nowcasting via phone would be greatly appreciated as I lack vehicular radar. Anyone who may be able to nowcast please pm a phone number. This is not good chase country (hills, trees, major river) but there are good intercept points and the long-range visibility is good today, not our normal spring soup.

Thanks in advance,

dave

 

[Sam Sagnella]

Wicked looking hook echo in St. Clair county, AL with the most dangerous portion of the storm located very near Pell City.

Streaming Video from NBC13 in Birmingham.

EDIT:
radar loop of St. Clair County storm (via My-Cast.com), which you can see interacting with a boundary in the last couple of frames. Not surprisingly, the tornado warning has been reissued/extended for another 45 min.

ALSO- anyone else having problems with CoD?

 

[Jeff Snyder]

There have been some nice supercells along the AL/GA border region this afternoon. However, there is also a very nice supercell in northern Mexico, SSW of the DFX / Laughlin AFB radar in deep south Texas. It's had a hail spike occassionally, and tilt 1 SRV imagery shows quite strong rotation. There are actually two supercells aligned N-S in that area. The nearest surface ob appears to be the Laredo ASOS site, which is reporting 105/61 with SE sfc winds (yes, 105F -- hot!). Pretty nice supercells -- too bad it's probably only being watch by one or two people LOL.

(I'll move my post over to a 4/19 NOW: TX thread should there be reason for more discussion in TX area. As it stands now, however, there hasn't been much in the way of sfc-based convection in TX, though there have been intermittent attempts)

 

[Dave Gallaher]

Just returned from 3.5 hour chase trip. After watching storms on radar initiating south of the Tennessee River near Guntersville, I instead opted to go SW to Cullman County via I-65 which took about an hour from my home.

Once there I turned east on US 278 through Cullman (about the time of the radar capture in Sam's post) and drove east accompanied by interesting shear--apparent SE storm motions with low level inflow racing north containing low, low stratus clouds, some just a few yards above the ground, much cooler in temp than surrounding air mass. I knew I couldn't catch the storm NE of Birmingham, so I chose (without radar or nowcasting) to proceed east. Once past Holly Pond on 278, things began to get more interesting as cg lightning led me to an area of several updrafts. The first I filmed was next to a 'hole' downdraft, clear air coming down and moving cloud tags downward right next to a darker updraft that attempted to get organized for several minutes. Its best moment came when a top-shaped lowering became tightly rotational next to the hole, but it didn't last long. Looking further east in darker skies, lightning illuminated a nice lowering behind a precip shaft, but by that time vision was difficult, so I turned north on US 231 and drove back home.

Found my computer jammed and locked when I got in, so I have been unable to check other warnings that may have occurred in the area, but none were broadcast on radio that I heard.

Sure looking forward to some mobile radar in the near future...