For the first time in hours, there were no tornado or severe thunderstorm warnings in effect as of 8:00 p.m.
NWS permitted the Tornado Warning for Clay and Randolph Counties to end at the expiration time at 8:00 p.m. Still a long line of thunderstorms in progress from SW Alabama NE into the East/Central part of the state. There has been some tremendous lightning returns in a lot of those thunderstorms, especially over the eastern counties this evening. At 8:00 p.m., some of the most brilliant lightning was over Clay County.
NWS continues a Severe Thunderstorm Watch for part of South Alabama until 9:00 p.m. Late this afternoon the EMA Office reported a wind gust to 86 mph in downtown Gadsden. There was scattered wind damage in a number of other locations, including the greater Birmingham area, where a lot of trees were down, especially in Hoover and Riverchase.
SOME RAIN AMOUNTS FROM TODAY’S STORMS
1.23 Birmingham Airport
1.17 Shelby County Airport
0.85 Huntsville
0.96 Pinson
0.31 Tuscaloosa Airport
1.27 Clay (off Deerfoot)
1.40 NE Trussville
0.98 Cordova
1.01 Ft. Payne Airport
0.67 Gadsden Steam Plant
0.72 Oneonta
0.86 Steele
1.38 Jemison
1.27 Concord/Hueytown
Around 8 o’clock tonight the EMA in Clay County reported that two people had beens struck by lightning. That is all the information we know at this time.
At 6:58 p.m., an NWS employee reported wind gusts to 48 mph at Thorsby in Chilton County.
Even though there were no formal warnings in effect at 8:00, the NWS issued a Special Weather Statement for Chambers, Clay, Coosa, Randolph and Tallapoosa Counties until 9:00 p.m. This is called a Significant Weather Alert and it falls short of being a Severe Thunderstorm Warning.
