Alabama at 8:45 am

For several days, we have warned that today (Wednesday) would be our most dangerous weather event. We got an early start, even well before daybreak. A vicious line of thunderstorms moved from East Mississippi into West/Central Alabama around 4:00 a.m. and immediately there was a rash of warnings, including Severe Thunderstorm and Tornado Warnings.

That line of thunderstorms moved steadily eastward all across the state and into West and NW Georgia. On its way, it triggered numerous Severe Thunderstorm and Tornado Warnings.

There was widespread damage. Look at these notes:

* Numerous trees uprooted in all parts of North and Central Alabama. This included small trees, medium trees and very large trees.

* Unfortunately, a lot of those fell across homes and automobiles. We had a number of reports of entrapment where people were in their car or trapped in their home. First responders were pressed into action immediately and it became overwhelming.

* There may have been several tornadoes involved in all of this, especially in NE Alabama. At one time, the number of power outages exceeded 250 thousand.

* The EMA reported multiple tornadoes in NE Alabama, especially in the Guntersville and Arab areas. There was widespread damage around Arab.

* Birmingham is a heavily wooded area and there were so many trees uprooted that many streets were blocked and some communities were impassable. Some people were trapped in their cars and homes.

* My son is a fireman with the Birmingham Fire Department. and also the Center Point Fire Department. He is at Birmingham Station 32 on US-280 today. He reports they had trouble getting back to the station after making runs and some of the avenues leading off of US-280 were impassable. He believes that the number of trees that were down will number in the thousands before all of this is done.

* Lightning was vicious also. This knocked out a number of power lines and through many homes into darkness.

* There was considerable property damage even in downtown Jasper.

* Now we must look ahead to our main performance of severe weather which will come this afternoon and extend into the evening.

* The Storm Prediction Center had us in a Moderate Risk last night. This morning they upgraded North and Central Alabama to a high risk. That is quite unusual. The atmosphere is volatile enough to where we could see some powerful and long-track tornadoes this afternoon and evening. We hope not, but we must face reality.

* This is clearly a day when everyone should keep in close touch with the very latest weather information. We recommend this BLOG and we will try to keep it freshly updated all day and night.

Category: Alabama's Weather, Severe Weather