This cloud rotated for around five minutes before our sirens went off. Same story yesterday.

Can't really tell from a still shot but it's creepy looking regardless, lol.

~Tobe

Can't really tell from a still shot but it's creepy looking regardless, lol.

5am my fluffy white butt. We're still getting tornadoes dropping. New area now though.

~Tobe

It's been like this for the last couple of weeks. In two weeks, we've had no less than three tornado warnings here at Mississippi State, and there's the potential for more today. We'll most likely be in the pink area later in the day.

Really, if it's not snow storms, it's tornados.

for the ones stuck on the tornado area i'll send you my prayers dear please stay safe : (

i hope it goes away without harming anyone very soon.

Got word earlier that the city of Phill Campbell was completely destroyed by the massive tornado I was tracking earlier. Most of northern Alabama is without power as well as portions of south central Tennesse.

This system will be hitting north Georgia soon.

god damn

Even the reports just from the local spotters are piling up a body count.

Latest out of Alabama is 15 confirmed dead. That many on a preliminary report is heartbreaking.

EDIT: I've gotta slow down and take a break. Been at this all day and we're STILL tracking 13 possible tornadoes. I'll be in chat if anyone wants info.

I'm currently around that area. A small tornado came around towards us (We're in Louisville, Kentucky) about last week. Luckily we didn't get any real, serious damage, it practically just leaped right over us, so...

: ( this tornado is very terryfing, this is whats on yahoo news right now:

" BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (AFP) – Deadly tornados and flash floods flattened buildings and overturned vehicles overnight Thursday as a major storm tore through the United States, its death toll rising to nearly 80 people.

Forty-five people were killed in Alabama alone, authorities said, and President Barack Obama said Washington would be rushing search and rescue assistance to the southeastern state. states of emergency were declared in Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee and Oklahoma, and governors called out the National Guard to help with rescue and cleanup operations. The National Weather Service had preliminary reports of nearly 300 tornados since the storm began on Friday, including more than 130 on Wednesday alone. Alabama was especially badly hit, caught by two lines of storms that killed at least 25 people over 24 hours".

this is very scary i pray no more get hurt but it looks really bad. i dont understand how 300 tornados can hit like that. if anyone on this forum is in those areas please stay safe.

We just got power back where we are about one this morning. I heard that Tuscaloosa got hit really badly.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those who lost their lives.

231 dead now, according to CNN. The videos are horrifying nightmare stuff.

This is terrible, horrible, earth-shattering stuff. Hundreds of lives lost, thousands more shattered. And by tomorrow it will be shelved for a ****ing wedding.

Speaking as someone who works in TV news, the knowledge that this disaster will be pushed to the backburner within 24 hours by a silly wedding for a powerless monarchy pisses me off to no end.

... Sorry, shouldn't have gone off on a tangent. The only important thing is if people and their loved ones made it through the other side of this disaster okay.

i wont watch the wedding i was looking forward to it of course but i dont want to turn on the tv : ( this really is just so terrible, its scary how fast the death toll went up. me and my mom just kept praying for people to stay safe all day... its just terrible thinking someone right now is facing that tornado.

This is as bad as the 2009 storms that hit OKC. And those were two EF4's.

I've heard some spotter rumor milling there is a possibility of the tuscaloosa/birmingham being marked an EF5. Which is unprecedented if true. NOAA/NWS has 4 survey teams JUST in the northern alabama area. but it will still be days before we know the full size and scope of this.

More info in. More and more reports indicating that the same tornado was responsible for Tuscaloosa and the damage in NW Georgia. As well I have some prelims reporting total annihilation of several area hospitals. Again, if true this could be the US's fist EF5 as the damage path will be nearly 200 miles and at least 1000m wide.

Rumor Control: I just wanted to point out before anyone goes media looney with me saying that. These are some of the indicators for an possible EF5 below.

- Wind Speed Gust over 3sec period: >200mph
- Complete Destruction of anything smaller than a 20 story highrise office building.

Odds are that this will be another EF4, just with a very high fatality report because of the length of time it was on the ground. I'll keep this thread updated.

Update:

Tornado that hit Monroe County in Mississippi @ 3:44pm has be initially reported as a EF4

UPDATE2:

Reports are that Lousiana suffered ZERO fatalities. Finally some GOOD news.

Wow this has annoyed me to no end.

There's this disaster going on over there and this topic is the first I've heard of it. Over here the news is just constantly on about the royal wedding. Us brits are all bloody sick of the royal wedding already and it ain't even happened yet and this is happening and it's getting pushed out of the news just for a fancy cerimony WHAT

ARGH!!!

I'm hoping that you guys and all your friends and family are safe, and that there are no more casualties. I hope you guys can get back to normal as soon as poss after too. You guys get all the bad luck with weather don't you =/

What Bunanigans said. I've been staying away from all news bulletins so as to avoid the latest gossip about some dude's wedding, so completely missed this.

Thoughts are with you guys.

DW

I am the terror that flaps in the night. I am the substantial and inescapable penalty for early withdrawal. I am Darkwing Duck!

As far as I know only two people from here were in the path of these storms. Strike that, both have appeared.

Oddly enough, the restaurant I went to (near the Hoover area) was in a perfect position to miss the supercell that hit Birmingham (the one that spawned the mile-wide EF5 you see here) to our north and the supercell that ran through Shelby county to our south. Luckily enough, my family's home is in a geographical dead zone of a sorts; the running joke is that whenever rain comes from the west, the geography around our house causes storms to miss (we've seen rain clouds split up before they hit our house and REFORM on the other side). Sucks when we need rain, but it's nice when it comes to avoiding tornadoes (according to my father, two of them emerged that were a few miles away).

Everyone in the restaurant was watching when the EF4 hit Tuscaloosa. I've watched videos of the aftermath; those were areas I went not two months ago when going to Kamicon.

Prayers up for those affected.

/was still under the impression that Rico lived in the midwest
//you apparently live somewhere in the southeast now?

No, I'm in Oklahoma. But I know people in that area and always keep tabs on weather like this.

And are media outlets really calling it an EF5? I find that hard to believe. The survey teams are reporting it will take till at least the 29th to finish with the Tuscaloosa/Birmingham section of that damage path. So we'll know by the 1st for sure what it was. I'm still not seeing any damage photo's that indicate an EF5. Rumors that there are but I've not seen any with my own eyes.

~Tobe

That's what I've been hearing. In particular, the areas of Pleasant Grove and Pratt City outside Birmingham were hit hard.

Here's some aerial shots from Tuscaloosa, Cullman, Pratty City, Pleasant Grove, and Concord, courtesy of Birmingham News. Also, this CBS 42 video has a lot of aerial footage.

Don't know if it'll be as bad as 1974, which I hear was real bad but things aren't looking up in that regard.

I live just outside of Atlanta (~20 miles, give or take), and my area has been largely unaffected.

Ultra Sonic 007 wrote:

---

 the geography around our house causes storms to miss (we've seen rain clouds split up before they hit our house and REFORM on the other side). Sucks when we need rain, but it's nice when it comes to avoiding tornadoes (according to my father, two of them emerged that were a few miles away).

your family must pray a lot : )  i'm really happy you're alright too.

but there's news about flash floods : (  we had those last year so i'm starting to worry about that a lot. and i seen pictures of alabama its just terrible how destroyed some areas were. 
and thank god you're area is okay hukos. i just hope the floods dont cause more harm.

I heard that the one that slammed Tuscaloosa was over a mile wide.

I saw a video of it, and it was just so surreal.

Reports in from the Alabama Marion/Winston county team indicate that one was an EF3. 

Chickasaw/Monroe county MI tornado has be initially rated an EF3

Layafette county MI tornado has been rated intially as an EF3

Chickasaw county MI tornado has been rated initally as an EF1

Catoosa county GA tornado has been rated initially as an EF4

Dade/Walker county GA tornado has been rated initially as an EF3

Meriwether, Spalding, and Henry County GA tornado has been rated initially as an EF3

Pike, Lamar, Monroe, and Butts Counties GA tornado has been rated initially as an EF3

Bartow, Cherokee, and Pickens Counties GA tornado has been rated initially as an EF3

UPDATE:

Just in..  The Police offices and Post office in Smithville, MI was completely destroyed.  18 homes that were in the central damage path were simply shredded were they stood, no pull or moving, just shredded.   The anemometer registered a gust of 205mph from this tornado.  The water system for the town was completely destroyed.  New two story homes bolted to their foundations were completely destroyed.  This tornado was rated an EF4 but due to the damage in Smithville being catastrophic the Monroe County tornado is now being rated an EF5.    The first tornado to be rated that high on the enhanced fujita scale, and we hope the last.

~Tobe

Sorry to double post but I wanna keep my commentary separate from the facts.  I looked at ultras pictures and link and based on those would rate it an EF4.   I'm not seeing any large buildings that are completely destroyed but there are some large family homes destroyed and trees snapped instead of uprooted both of those are indicators of an EF4.

Clarifying.  Destroyed means to the foundation.  No walls standing. 

Raleigh, NC got hit the hardest in my area, just away. The Asheboro, NC area, where I live at, has been under Tornado watches/warnings for the past week at least.

Yeah, NC got hit hard on the 16th. I think they reported 30 tornadoes confirmed. 5 EF3's... which is pretty staggering and in line with crap you see here.

EDIT:

4 NOAA weather channels are offline in the hunstville area.... sheesh...

More Reports in.  Finally some from Alabama and I wish the news was better.

FRANKLIN COUNTY  -  EF4  (20 dead)
DEKALB COUNTY - EF4 (30 dead)
LIMESTONE AND MADISON COUNTIES - EF4 (11 dead)


MARION AND WINSTON COUNTIES  

SHOTSVILLE TORNADO - EF3 (6 dead)(prelim)
HACKLEBURG TORNADO - EF3 (25 dead) (prelim) 
HALEYVILLE TORNADO - EF3 (No Fatalities Reported)  (prelim)




~Tobe

At least there was one piece of good news?  

YAY!  Triple post!

Any final statistics are at this link.  I'll go away forever now.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/april_2011_tornado_information.html

~Tobe

thank you so much toby for covering this you were wonderful dear and i'm glad everyone from the mofo is okay. its scary how many tornados there were. i'm just glad its over : (

Louisville, KY area:
Two National Weather Service damage survey teams will be headed out
today and tomorrow to survey damage from early Wednesday morning
storms.  One team surveyed damage across Monroe and Cumberland counties
in southern Kentucky and found an EF-1 tornado (details to come).  The
same team will also survey Lincoln county this afternoon.  In addition,
another team will head to Green county Friday morning and survey damage
in Greensburg.

Ugh!  Tornadoes in the East, and flooding in the West; Kentucky is in a sorry state right now...and the evacuation of Cairo, IL became mandatory over the weekend.

The KFVS website has been on top of things new-wise:
http://www.kfvs12.com/story/14503766/flooding-prompts-road-closures-in-southeast-missouri

http://www.kfvs12.com/story/14509921/states-of-emergency-declared-in-paducah-mccracken-county

http://www.kfvs12.com/story/14559251/city-of-paducah-asks-for-national-guard-help

http://www.kfvs12.com/story/14557528/corps-of-engineers-to-breach-levee

*points to the last article* When they first breached that levee, we heard the booms & felt shock-waves all the way over here in Paducah.

Where is all that round the clock news coverage now. Guess tornado's are more media friendly than half the south BECOMING AN OCEAN. D:

By that I mean the fact that Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, AND Mississippi are bathed in the wonder green toxic glow of flood warnings. Oh and Indiana and Ohio ain't safe neither. D:

Don't normally double post, but I figured this was important.

As if the year couldn't get any worse, flooding for all along the Mississippi River.

The Mississippi hasn't been this high since 1927.

Yeah... its a damn lake spanning 3/4ths the country.

SRH Mississippi flood page below.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jan/?n=2011_05_ms_river_flood

~Tobe

The Army Corps have even had to completely destroy hundreds of acres of cropland to protect cities and towns.

Not only are people losing their homes, but they're also losing their livelyhoods.

I'm lucky enough that me and my family live so far inland, and I can't imagine what the rest of the Mississippi coastline in going through right now.

EDIT: Well, me and my mom had to go to Natchez to shop yesterday, so we decided to ride across the bridge and see how high the river was. The board walk is underwater, and only part of the benches along it are still visible. And it still has about four feet left to go.