April 28, 2014 Tornado Coverage/ABC 33/40 9:00-9:30 pm

circulating the warning for northern Tuscaloosa County now let's and again let's go I wanted to check the Coleman County situation here let me go back to the Huntsville and they are going to extend the tornado warning for Coleman County until 9:30 the there indicating a tornado possibly near the Smith Lake Dam so we are let's take all of the let's go back to your system and let's just show the polygons okay all right so James I want to I'm gonna say a why they're extending or continuing the warnings is because the storms have shown so much of a cyclical pattern today throughout throughout the day and evening where they seem to decrease but then pick back up and I think that's why the Huntsville are continuing the warning on that particular storm there okay well let's zoom into this and again what we're gonna do we can do the same thing for people in Coleman County let's show you who's in and who's out all right again obviously Bremen and arkadelphia you are involved in this cold springs good hope Dodge City Hanceville is in the polygon now this doesn't for most of the city of Coleman you're not in it it it affects the far southern and H city of Coleman from downtown Coleman north and west you were not involved in this it affects Garden City in Hanceville right here it does not include Holley pods so this is your new tornado warning this is a tornado warning for the southern part of Coleman County for a storm and moving northeast and that could be crossing i-65 so we encourage people not to be driving along i-65 from the Good Hope exit down to the Blount Springs exit nobody should be along the interstate for about the next 30 minutes and pretty much the same thing for highway 31 from really Coleman this is highway 69 right here down to the mulberry Fork of the warrior river nobody should be on highway 31 and nobody should be along Alabama highway 91 that's a road that runs from i-65 back up toward the Holly ponds so that's your warning for southern calman County now let's go down again to show the Tuscaloosa County tornado warning this is a warning in effect for the northern part of Tuscaloosa County does not include the city of Tuscaloosa and includes the northern part of North Port and points north so that's that warning and let's go back to our other warning in Pickens County this is for a storm that has come out of Mississippi this is for the southern part of Pickens County this includes Pickens Ville Aliceville Carrollton and Gordo so if you're in that southern half of Pickens County you are under a tornado warning so we we almost went down 2-0 Brian now we're almost three you know we that that's the way it goes sometimes we're getting apparently small hail at arkadelphia okay one of the sky watchers reported hail he did not specify the size I think he's saying now that he can't really see it that well and let me just say this this is going to be another slightly interesting situation it looks like The Weather Service in Huntsville is going to be posting a high wind warning for a wake low gravity wave event on the back edge of this and this is not directly related to thunderstorm winds this is a situation where you can have very strong winds as rain ends and we'll put the tails out on that as soon as they issue that so again that is a high wind warning coming up for the Tennessee Valley for the back edge of this they've not done that yet they're in the process of doing that so we are in the process of working three separate tornado warning polygons right now one for southern Hallman County one for northern Tuscaloosa County and one for southern Pickens County other than that we have severe thunderstorm warnings in effect for parts of Jefferson and Walker and Fayette Tuscaloosa Green hail and Sumter counties for the possibility of hail and strong winds as the storms come on through and again you're looking at our Skycam Network and you can see that we're gonna have a pretty impressive lightning show north of the city as we look north from the Tuscaloosa County Courthouse and that's that big cluster of storms they're not gonna cancel the warning for the northern part of Pickens County James the northeastern part because there's a warning in effect right to eliminate the southern to eliminate confusion right so and again that the polygon system is marvelous what it does it really helps that's one of the reasons we like these about to pull out my phone and show you my smartphone app I don't have it in my pocket but it knows where you are with the GPS chip and if you are in one of these polygons you get the warning and if you're not you don't it works very well weather radios are great it's the baseline but there's still county base so the smartphone apps are very good the warning apps in the two we like our I'm app weather radio and my warned we have no financial interest in them but they're very good that they both of them work well and they cost about ten dollars on the App Store for Android or iOS and they are fantastic so that that's another layer of getting these warnings the baseline it's a weather radio next layer comes the smartphones and of course we know everybody doesn't have a smartphone we have a service called weather call that rings your home phone for those that still have home phones works out very well you can sign up for that on the 3340 website but anyway so this is where we stand right now let's check that warning for Sumter County Brian a new warning for a Sumter this is a tornado warning for a tornado that is located 14 miles west of Cuba moving northeast at 40 miles an hour now Sumter County is in the Meridian Mississippi television market but we know a lot of people watch us that are there in places like Livingston in York I got many friends the University of West Alabama engines campus it is a marvelous marvelous place and there is a there's there's a circulation that is coming out of Lauderdale County Mississippi northeast of Meridian that's going to be coming up in here I just wanted to show you that the southern two-thirds of Sumpter County under a tornado warning this will include York and Livingston and Bellamy and Belmont and if you were in any of those communities Cuba you want to be in a safe place so this includes the campus of the University of West Alabama as well that's Alabama 28 that runs down to highway 80 has a rooster bridge coming across the Tombigbee River so that is a tornado warning for the southern two-thirds of Sumpter County basically from Gainesville in Epps south and just be in a safe place if you happen to be watching us down there let's work our way north and again we'll show the both the polygons and the radar on these things this is the the polygon for a storm that is coming out of Mississippi that could affect places like Pickens Ville Aliceville Carrollton reform and Gordo all of those communities are in the tornado warning polygons so if you're there and if you are in Pickens County be aware that that is an issue then in Tuscaloosa County the northern half of the county and again we stress the tornado warning does not include Tuscaloosa does not include the University of Alabama it includes the northern part of North Port and points north and then for southern Kuhlman County right here so we have one two three four tornado warning polygons in effect for these storms and you can see they tried to go again they're kind of separating out so at one point we were hoping and optimistic that these things would be more in a line but at this point they're kind of going back to being cellular again let's go to the high-res radar let me just show you some of the radar looks on this this is the circulation center that is prompted the warning for northern Tuscaloosa County this thing is in the process of crossing over highway 171 it'll be crossing over highway 43 in just a little bit and again if you're in the northern part of the city of North Port you need to be in a safe place that's a small room lowest floor near the center and away from windows and again that'll be crossing after highway 171 it will be crossing u.s. highway 43 up here probably near just north of MIT Larry Road if you're around Lake Tuscaloosa you want to be in a safe place same deal no mobile homes no cars no vehicles nobody should be traveling along highway 171 u.s. 43 Alabama 69 those are the roads going north out of Tuscaloosa in Northport until this thing passes so that is one of the four tornado warning polygons we have now this is for the northern part of Tuscaloosa County this is what's prompted the warning up here for Kuhlman County and again that's a pretty good little signature this this thing is coming and going and like brian says it's cyclical so you know you see it maybe occluding and it chokes itself off and all of a sudden it's back well that's a pretty decent radar signature that is located in your colony and that's about to cross the interstate 65 so again nobody should be traveling along i-65 from the Good Hope exit down to the Blount Springs exit for about the next 30 minutes says this is a tornadic circulation near colony that's about to cross over i-65 next in line over here is going to be Garden City and if this continues on this track the Weather Service in Birmingham will have to look at a tornado warning from Blount we don't know if they'll do that yet but again that this is a warning that is in effect for the southern part of Coleman County and again we stress that this does not include the city of Kuhlman this is for areas south of Coleman so again this includes really from Good Hope is where the polygon begins down to Dodge City and Colony and includes Garden City and includes Hanceville but again that's clear rotation that is very close to Colony right now so that is the tornadic circulation that is located in Coleman County and again let's go back to the big radar and just kind of show you the big picture everything else here we get a lot of severe thunderstorm warnings in effect but again we're gonna watch this and again that when you see storms that look like that that's always kind of problematic that's a storm coming into the Birmingham metro and it's got some evidence of broad circulation on there I'm looking at that and the Weather Service might decide to pull a trigger on that for a possible warning but it's it's broad and there's a severe thunderstorm warning in effect like let me show you that the high-res radar on that thing right there you see this right here again that's the possibility of what could be some rotation back in the south western flank of this thing this is the community of West Jefferson and this is coming up toward these populated corridors northwest of Birmingham is Graysville and Forrest Dale you got Adamsville down here but again there's no tornado warning here we just have a severe thunderstorm warning in effect for Jefferson County but be aware we could see some strong maybe damaging straight-line winds within that and like I've said many times before doesn't matter if you've got tornadic winds or straight-line winds you just want to know they're coming on the Skycam there James right so we are looking at our camera on top of the Alabama Power Company building in downtown Birmingham and again you can see the lightning strikes that are almost constant one of the things that has been storms are very hot yes lots of lightning a lot James the newsroom just buzzed in my ear and said that they're getting a lot of calls asking what's the polygon you want to give a shot that you explain to our professional Weather Service meteorologists here the WCM guy you're the guy that invented the polygon I did not invent the all right could we can we can we take the graphic system and get the the polygons up there well what the National Weather Service is doing with the polygons is that you can see that the the polygons say for Coleman County there is trying to reduce the amount of a warned area within the county they're specifying based on where the thunderstorm where the tornado might be where the tornado signature the severe weather signatures are they're trying to define a smaller area called the polygon and that is the area at highest risk and as James pointed out like in the case of Coleman County Coleman this most of the city of Coleman has yet to be actually within a tornado warning there were tornado warnings to the north of them based on the polygon but the the county name was mentioned so the polygon is the idea is to reduce the amount of coverage of the warned area and that is is what the polygon is though the polygon usually starts out as you can see there on the the polygon map it starts out usually fairly small near where the thunderstorm is and I'm gonna go ahead and put the radar back on on the radar there and you can see that to where the thunderstorm is is where the polygon starts so it usually starts a little small there and then expands because the thunderstorms don't always move in a truly straight line they may curve a little to the left or to the right based on the rotations that are going on within the mesocyclone of the thunderstorm that is is what's producing the tornado itself so the bottom line is that they they expand a little bit but again in the case of Coleman County looking at the the warning area in Coleman County much less of the Coleman County area is under a warning but still you using geographical references you still have to mention that it is in Coleman County that's what makes some of the smart phone apps so much better because the smart phones have a chip they know where you are based on your GPS your your location so by giving the app permission to know where you or it can correlate with the polygon which is also latitude longitude so they know whether or not you are in that polygon and therefore you can reduce the amount of times you're going to be warned which means for example you don't have to shut down your business or you don't have to seek shelter in the case of the one for Coleman County there you know a small portion a much smaller portion of Coleman County is actually under the gun while people in the northwest part or northeast part or north-central part can continue their normal activities being cautious of what's going on around them so I hope that helps to describe the polygon a lot of times in the case of this one where we're looking at here with the Coleman County polygon a lot of times the warning that the weather service draws will follow the county boundary which is why it looks kind of curvy on the southern boundary there it's following the boundary of the county which is actually along the river so they don't always draw just straight lines to make that polygon so I hope that helps people to understand exactly what the polygon is again the intent is to try to reduce the amount of people an area affected by warnings so that if you do seek shelter you're seeking shelter because you really are close to and in the area of greatest risk from a severe thunderstorm from a flash flood or from a tornado in the case of this at the red and Coleman County a tornado warning all right we are back it is see the time is 9 18 James span I've got Brian Peters here and we are in the midst of a long form tornado day we thank you for your patience so we've been here since 3 o'clock today we've been working a tornado outbreak and fortunately the death toll in the state I understand now is six that was told in my ear from our news department and these fatalities occurred in limestone County the sheriff this afternoon up in the Tennessee Valley around Athens that is the obviously the story of the day nothing like that down here on our end of the state and that's good news but we are staying with this let's go down and take a look at these various radar signatures this is the the tornado warning storm here crossing i-65 this is coming across i-65 really between Good Hope and colony around Dodge City and this is still capable of producing a tornado and what I want to do is take off the reflectivity put on the velocity and again we can often spot these things a lot easier and there it is that's very well defined rotation that could be a tornado crossing i-65 right now very close to colonies so again nobody should be especially on highway 91 right now running from i-65 up to Hanceville but those of you in Hanceville and garden city even as far north as Good Hope but the core threat is going to be Hanceville and Garden City you need to be in a safe place that is a small room lowest floor near the center and away from windows for that tornado circulation that is located in southern Coleman County this is the tornadic circulation that is north of North Port in Tuscaloosa County and again this thing is awfully broad but within that there could be some strong winds and maybe a tornado this has crossed over us 43 it's crossed over highway 171 that's going to keep on moving northeast is basically cutting across the northern part of Lake Tuscaloosa right now and that's going to keep on moving northeast up toward Windham Springs and again we stress this is not affecting the city of Tuscaloosa not affecting the University of Alabama man for most of North Port it's the northern part of North Port that's being affected here and the core of this thing is passing again right over the northern part of Lake Tuscaloosa so that is the second storm the third circulation is the one down here in Pickens County and again quite frankly that is very noisy and this is a part we're having a hard time seeing that Brian and you yes I agree with you James following along on the radar here in the the looking at either the Birmingham or the Columbus radars and it's much harder to see it's noise it is all noise down here so I wish I could tell you a specific point where there is a tornado but again the Weather Service saw something where they felt it important enough to put out a tornado warning and we need to honor that so again we got a tornado County you can see Gordo is here reform is here these two cities are right on the edge of this polygon and again I would go ahead and stay in a safe place until the warning expires this does include Carrollton does include Aliceville so again that is a tornado warning for the southern part of Pickens County even though we really don't see a lot on radar right now suggesting we have problems there I'll pop off of the velocity stick on the reflectivity and again that is not really overwhelming this leaves pouring rain down in Greene County again no evidence of any storm rotation we got a severe thunderstorm warning down here and then finally down in picketer at Sumter County we have a tornado warning in effect for this cluster of storms coming out of Lauderdale County Mississippi tornado warning includes places like Cuba York Livingston most of the University of West Alabama so if you're down in Sumpter County watching this on the live stream would be in a safe place until this thing passes take about 30 minutes or so the southern most storms are going to be the ones that could be problematic those are the storms and a more unstable airmass where the inflow is better so again these are the ones you really have to watch down here so again that is a tornado warning for the southern part of Sumpter County basically from ml and EPS south and again this includes Livingston and York looks like a bow shaped echo almost in here this could be more of a damaging straight-line wind event but clearly that storm could pack a big-time punch as it comes across Sumpter County so again now we'll go back up to a Tuscaloosa County and take a look at the reflectivity and Brian this elusive sky cam yeah the well and it's raining there now oh wow lightning tremendous lightning let's take a look at the Tuscaloosa Skycam yeah okay just missed that one you just wanted to mention James that the Huntsville National Weather Service is continuing the warning until 9:30 for Coleman that's the the rotation that we were watching that's approaching yeah it looks good Hanceville yeah yeah it does and once again these things have been very cyclical tonight in this evening they have they have shown signs of diminishing and becoming rather broad and then they will tighten back up so the Missal cyclones getting stronger that means there's a greater potential that it could be producing a tornado remember the radar is looking above the ground so we're looking at through the rotations the circulations that are going on within the thunderstorm within the updrafts of the thunderstorm and I just noticed once again James because of the rural nature of some of our counties Walker County 911 we've mentioned several times has been very quiet all evening now they're starting to get reports of trees down and these have got to be from previous storms not the current ones wow that was quite a lightning strike yeah and again let me just say this too if we're not talking about your community we're not ignoring you which there's nothing happening there of a severe nature we are here to look at the storms that are life threatening and if we're not calling out your hometown that means you've got no severe weather problems you might have rain thunder and lightning but remember severe weather is defined by hail one inch in die as a 58 miles per hour greater or a tornado and that is our focus here so as the storms keep on moving east now if you become under a severe weather warning we'll start to focus on you but we're trying to focus on those storms that are severe at this point and for those of you in East Alabama there is nothing severe nothing Anniston Gaston you've got some rain you got some thunder you got some lightning we got no problems here the issues so far have been mainly along and west of and they continue to be and that's a little-bitty storm up there in fact let's go back to that high res radar we got a very tight circulation here this no doubt there could be a tornado this thing is crossed over I 65 next up it'll be coming up coming up along u.s. highway 31 Hanceville and Garden City and clearly if you live in Hanceville if you are a student at Wallace State you are there in the campus if you are in Garden City anywhere close to those two cities you need to be in a safe place a small room lowest floor near the center away from windows is this circulation we'll be crossing highway 31 in a matter of moments and then ultimately it'll be cutting back out into Blount County and we'll see this is blood spill right here and the Weather Service in Birmingham could very well have to put out a tornado warning for parts of Blount is this thing is coming out of Coleman over into Blount we'll just have to wait and see but that's a pretty good circulation center and I would not be shocked if the warning was to be extended now we got a tornado warning for Jefferson County all right we got a tornado warning for Jefferson County so let's go right to that I'll show you what we got here I've been looking at that and I think everybody has been looking at that and there it is this is a circulation that is located and again this is a case let's go back to your system first before we go to the radar let me show you the polygon who's in who's out we're gonna take off the radar data and we're gonna put up the specific locations in Jefferson County and the polygon if you guys can make me full screen for just a minute that'll make it easier for us to see downtown Birmingham is not in the polygon this tornado warning includes places like Adamsville Fulton Dale Forrest Dale garden Dale Mount Olive Kimberly Morris warrior West Jefferson it includes Pinson it includes trussville it includes clay and includes choc Ville it includes North Birmingham if I've called that any of your communities that means you need to go to a safe place from downtown Birmingham basically i-20 south you are not involved if you live in Hoover if you live in Homewood if you live in Vestavia if you live in Mountain Brook if you live in Bessemer involved in this in Pleasant Grove you're not involved in this this thing is out here in the vicinity of Sylvan Springs and it's moving back up in this direction across the northern part of Jefferson County so let's go back to the radar and let me show you what we got and we've been watching this it's been looked suspicious for about the last 30 minutes this is the circulation center right here at Sylvan Springs that's Pleasant Grove the tornado are the possible tornado this is based on radar indication again I have not seen any evidence no reports so far right this is based on radar all right so again this is the tornado and it's moving up like this this is us 78 Graysville Adamsville Forrest Dale Cardiff Brookside West Jefferson is up here next up in line this will be cutting across places like Edgewater and McDonald Chapel you want to think about Graysville Adamsville probably as far north as say Reed Cardiff and Brookside Forest Dale I've called out your community you need to go to a safe place this is not sits nothing like April 8th of 1998 in my opinion nothing like April 27 2011 if something's down here more than likely it's going to be a smaller tornado but the truth is those can be dangerous and life-threatening and again that's the circulation center right here so this is a situation where you want to take this seriously and go to a safe place that's i-65 this is moving northeast so this is clearly going to go north of downtown Birmingham so for the major medical centers in Birmingham there is no need for any action at the hospitals in the city of Birmingham in that the polygon does not include downtown Birmingham the polygon is for areas north of downtown Birmingham but again this will be crossing over highway 78 and about the next five minutes or so probably in the vicinity of Graysville or Adamsville and then it's going to keep on cutting out across interstate 65 and the vicinity of Gardendale Fulton Dale and Mount Olive and then ultimately cutting across over here toward Pinson so if you live in any of these places we've called out we recommend you go to a safe room a small rooms lowest floor near the center away from windows no mobile homes no vehicles and of course that means we're recommending no travel a US Highway 78 from the arkadelphia Road exit on interstate 59 20 up to the Walker County line we had drives advise no travel along Interstate 65 from malfunkshun junction in downtown Birmingham up to the first warrior exit by the way we should point out now that we're good they've got a tornado warning for the Birmingham Metro we're simulcasting on our birmingham radio affiliates wcz k at 104.7 the new easy 97.3 and again if you need to listen to us on the radio those are the stations in Birmingham or we're simulcasting right now now we have other stations in other parts of the state but we're just joining the Birmingham stations because we now have that warning for Birmingham so let's go back to our polygon map and we're gonna we got a lot

Channel: ABC 33/40 Weather

Views: 15,456

Keywords: James, Spann, ABC, 3340, 33/40, Alabama, weather, Brian, Peters

Id: m6x1dH5Uubo

Length: 26min 33sec (1593 seconds)

Published: Mon May 05 2014