* The Severe Thunderstorm Watch continues until 10:00 tonight for a large part of North Alabama and part of Central Alabama. It includes all of the greater Birmingham area. See a list of some of the counties that we posted earlier. Intense thunderstorms have already moved into West and NW Alabama. These storms are overloaded with lightning.
* A Severe Thunderstorm Warning continues for parts of Fayette, Lamar, Marion and Pickens Counties until 4:15.
* A Severe Thunderstorm Warning for Fayette, Pickens, Tuscaloosa and Walker until 4:30.
* The Lamar County EMA reports thunderstorm wind damage 11 miles WNW of Fayette with trees down along Highway 18 near Crossville.
* A Storm Spotter reports that electrical power was flickering on and off at Haleyville.
* A Severe Thunderstorm Warning for Winston County until 4:45.
* A radar update at 4:00 p.m. indicates that the nearest strong storms to Birmingham were in Fayette and NW Tuscaloosa Counties.
* Away from Alabama, a bow echo (a distinct one) was racing across Arkansas. It is about halfway between Little Rock and Memphis. It is likely that numerous trees are falling along this line of storms.
* One of our readers named Jason who lives in Helena talked to his brother-in-law around 3:00 p.m. He lives on the north side of downtown Little Rock around. He reported a sudden hurricane-like wind with widespread power outages and visible power flashes from transformers blowing. Little Rock radio stations reported multiple funnel clouds in the Little Rock area.
Be sure and scroll down and see a very dramatic photograph that James posted of a shelf cloud near the Fayette Airport.
