Tuscaloosa Tornado

[Larry Posey]

Hello everyone. My name is Larry and I live in Mobile, AL. I thought I would post this here to share it with you all. I have been interested in weather since hurricane Frederick back in 1979.
I went on my first storm chase on Wednesday April 27, 2011. What a great day for the first chase I have ever been on. I drove from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa and intercepted the tornado 2.65 East of Skyland Blvd E in Tuscaloosa.
Not that it is pertinent here but I was in Birmingham for my father's funeral on Thursday and sitting around was not what I wanted to do. So for logistics purposes I was in the right place at the right time??
Thank you for allowing me to post this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isCrGbu2PV0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isCrGbu2PV0&feature=player_detailpage

 

[Chris Hayes]

Minus the trees and the hills you were in perfect position to view it. The supercells that occurred on the 27th were primarily classics, so you want to be east of them to view tornadoes, if/when they form. This is a radar representation of a classic supercell http://www.thunderstruck.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Tornadic_classic_supercell_radar.gif If you're to south of the location of the tornado you'll be able to see it, but not nearly with as much contrast as if you're to the east. From the west it's even harder, and from the north, forget it. Pretty good intercept on your part considering the terrain you had to deal with.

 

[Joshua Nall]

South of a large killer tornado is a good place to be... East is always better for video, but then there is the possibility of things going wrong you have no control over, especially in an urban environment.

 

[Larry Posey]

Thank you. You can tell from the video that I was scared to be so close. I had to tell myself twice that I was south of it so I was ok. I tried to go east and then north again but the roads were impassable.