8-29-05 NOW: Southeastern U.S.

[SteveCarter]

Here is Seneca, SC, there have been 6 tornado warnings within 75 miles of here in the last hour. It seems like these storms are better organized than previous hurricane-induced tubes. Is there anyone out there close by that is going to try and chase these? Right now (5:20PM EST) a nasty looking cell is heading toward the Athens, Ga area, but there seems to be no end to them. BTW - Seneca is in the NW tip of SC, 60 miles from Athens, GA, or 6 miles from Clemson. these are tough to chase, because the forward movement is 45-55 mph, and they are usually HP. Anyway, here I go, we'll see what happens.

 

[Tony Cook]

Hi Steve,

My chase partner and I drove down from Huntsville Monday morning to chase Katrina's outer rainbands. We ended up just east of Montgomery, AL from 2:30-5:00 p..m. Numerous cells with warnings propagated north over the area we were in during that time period.

After reviewing some of the video, I believe we caught a couple of well-developed wall clouds, with brief funnels. There are several reports of wind-damage from the cells I was on, which are tagged as "possible tornado" in the SPC storm reports.

We never got into Georgia, as we wanted to get back home before storms began to affect our area. There were some incredible cells over there. Peachtree NWS is reporting 9 tornadoes thus far:
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/data/FFC/PNSFFC

Needless to say, chasing rainband tornadoes in the AL/GA hills is considerably more challenging than Plains supercell chasing.

Tony