It was an anxious day and it turned out bad.
First, thanks to Bill Murray for covering the afternoon edition of the Weather Fax and e-forecast for me yesterday. He did it from Washington, DC. Aren’t mordern communications great! I was hanging out at the ABC 33/40 weather office with James Spann and Jason Simpson. I was handling radio broadcasts of the severe weather. While at 33/40, I ran headlong into the best BBQ and potato salad in my whole life.
Jim Stefkovich, Meteorologist in Charge of the Birmingham NWS Forecast Office, announced this morning that 4 NWS survey teams will be hard at work today checking all of yesterday’s storm damage. One team will survey Montgomery and Lowndes Counties, another team will check out Pike and Barbour Counties, a third team will visit Chambers, Tallapoosa and Elmore. Finally, a fourth team will team with Alabama State Troopers to survey all of the areas from the air. Those teams will feed back information to the NWS Forecast Office at Shelby County Airport and we may get some preliminary assessment later today. They will coordinate with EMA officials for those reports.
I don’t envy all those guys. I used to have to do some of that same work when I was in the NWS and it is no easy task. You would not believe how many hours I had to work at that after the Super Outbreak in 1973. Brian Peters has done a ton of those type of surveys during his career in the National Weather Service.
I am very anxious to see what the F ratings wll be and the path length. I was fascinated by one storm report from the NWS yesterday. It was a 12:25 p.m. report from four miles south of Brundidge in Pike County (the Hamilton Crossroads Community). It told of a water tower being destroyed and the fire department collapsing on their fire trucks. That is something to bring down a water tower.
Flash flooding became a secondary story yesterday. At one time, some intersections in Montgomery were under 18 inches of water. Over 6 inches of rain fell at Plantersville. (See a complete list below.)
Today was almost like a day in January. Late this morning, atop Mt. Cheaha, the visibility was nil. (they were in the clouds) It was only 40 degrees with west winds gusting to 40 mph. Clouds were hanging tough across the state and there has been intermittent light rain and drizzle.
Josh Johnson, our great friend who is Chief Meteorologist with WTOK in Meridian, suggested that if today was in January, we might wind up with a good covering of snow. I agree. Some places in West Tennessee have received about 0.40 inches of rain and drizzle after it turned cold.
RAINFALL AMOUNTS
We have far too many rainall reports to post here, but we do want to include some of the most significant reports. Some of these are storm totals, while others are amounts for the 24-hour period ending at 6 o’clock this morning. I apologize for the length of this report.
5.50 inches at White City–Autuga County
3.63 at Ashland
2.90 at Alexander City
2.43 at Anniston, Alabama Power Report
2.84 at Smith Dam
1.72 at Ashville
3.33 in North Auburn
3.13 at Bankhead Lock and Dam
2.65 at Clanton
3.15 at Centre, Weiss Dam
3.07 at Hackneyville
2.61 at Horseshoe Bend
2.49 atop Mt. Cheaha
3.51 at Newell–Randolph County
3.28 at Roanoke
2.11 at Sylacauga, Alabama Power Report
1.75 at Steele, North St. Clair County
3.33 at Holt, east edge of Tuscaloosa
3.07 at Martin Dam
2.61 at Mitchell Dam
2.84 at Wadley
3.28 at Jordan Dam
2.03 at DeSoto State Park
1.72 at Greystone Farms
5.65 at Childersburg
1.89 on Rex Lake Road, east edge of Birmingham
1.97 at Noccalula Falls
1.19 at Alabaster
1.82 at Black Cree, NE Etowah County
6.50 at Plantersville
4.50 at Valley Grande, North Dallas County
1.61 at Demopolis
2.18 at Riverchase
1.84 at Helena
1.62 in downtown Birmingham
1.34 in Gadsden
3.93 at Atmore
3.10 at Brewton
3.18 at Highland Home
FROM THE MISSISSIPPI COAST
Scott McClellan sends us this report from Ocean Springs. 24-hour rainfall for the 24 hours ending midnight a whopping 10.22 inches. An elementary school was damaged and a gas station destroyed.
Stay tuned for much more information about Wednesday’s storm. I think the warning program yesterday was excellent including the NWS and TV/radio coverage. All the people at33/40 were working as a well-oiled team.
