November 10, 2002 was a Sunday. I was up extra early that morning to review weather data before heading off the church. A quick glance could tell me that there was a pretty good setup for a major severe weather outbreak, and by 6:00 a.m. I had already written a special severe weather update send to all of our E-Forecast subscribers, and also paged out to our E-Warn subscribers. The point of the message was pretty simple… you need to be a in a place to hear tornado warnings and other weather information that night since the cards were falling into place for a big event.
After church, I came into the weather office to discuss the situation with my old friend, John Oldshue. We decided it would be best to send John into the field in Storm Chaser 33/40 while I remained in the studio for weather coverage. It took a while, but severe storms developed quickly by late afternoon, and the action was non-stop much of the night. The November 10, 2002 tornado outbreak produced two long track tornadoes; one stayed on the ground for 44.3 miles and scored a direct on the Walker County community of Carbon Hill. A little later that evening, another long track tornado was down for 72.6 miles, and ran parallel to the first tornado… just a few miles to the southeast. Once again, Oldshue was in a perfect position with Storm Chaser 33/40; we was parked along U.S. 78 just about halfway between the two tornado tracks. His live images of continuous lightning were simply breathtaking.
In addition to the two long track tornadoes, there were nine others, making for a total of 11 tornadoes. The death toll was 12, and the school at Carbon Hill was wiped out. Other hard hit towns included Curry and Saragossa.
As we mark the 4th anniversary of this big severe weather event, we simply to understand that this is tornado season in Alabama, and it can happen again. Everyone needs to be in a position to receive severe weather warnings, and everyone must have a working family safety plan. Lets all work together to keep Alabama safe next time tornadoes are flying around here!
