December 16, 2019 Live Severe Weather Coverage - ABC 33/40

10 minutes after 8 o'clock we have a new tornado warning in effect this going to be for the southern part of Greene County this is an extension of the warning that's in effect for parts of northern Marengo so this includes North Marengo extreme southern green southern hey let's go right to the radar and here's the bottom line just right off the bat if you live in Demopolis you need to be sheltered now if you live in Demopolis and you're not in our television market you're in the Montgomery market but a lot of people can see us and we're on Facebook live and all the streaming now if you are in the city of Demopoulos you need to be sheltered now let's stop this from animating here and let's kind of zoom into Demopoulos and again let me just show you what we've got here let's go closer and again let me get your Bering Strait this is US highway 43 right here this is the bridge over the warrior that's the confluence of the Tombigbee and the warrior right here downtown Demopolis is here this is highway 43 going down toward Providence in Linden that's us 80 going out toward Demopolis High School and the rooster bridge we have strong evidence of what could be a tornado coming into Demopolis and this going to be moving up into the southern tip of green and southern hail counties so let's go to our graphics system of the watches warnings I'm gonna show you who's in and who's out okay so let's zoom into this warning here and let me just give you some of the communities that are in the warning and let's go in a bit tighter in Hale County Greensboro is here this is New Bern Greensboro and New Bern you are in Galyen you are in for cleaned in Greene County you are in this does not include Utah or Moundville this does include Greensboro New Bern it includes wedgeworth it does not include Akron does not include Moundville but it does include in Greene County for : the Alabama Power Company plant all the way down to Demopolis now we have n Demopolis Bryant Peters let's go right to Brian and Brian you're right the path of this thing tell us exactly where you are what you got right now well in a little to the south of the center of Demopolis just to the south of us 80 and the shot that you're seeing from the storm chaser is looking into this storm it's very very intense lightning it looks like the center of the storm that the core where the hail is probably falling and the radar indicates the potential core two to three inch hail is going to pass just to the north of where I'm located and the circulation has broadened out a little bit but still good indications that there may be a tornado with this yeah and let me just say this to Brian this is a very long track thunderstorm this thing has been there's been severe I know since way back in Mississippi in fact it's been on the ground I do believe the tornado at least at times for probably over 100 miles I'm not saying this continuous track but it's been a long lasting long track supercell thunderstorm and it's at a history of producing damage in parts of Choctaw County back into Mississippi so it's a very dangerous thunderstorm so again Brian give me your exact location tell us where you are and again you're north how far south ok yes are you yeah I'm probably just a mile or two from the center of Demopoulos of course I came in on us 43 Fair Haven Baptist Church I'm actually in the parking lot of a funeral home that's right in front of this the Fair Haven Baptist Church trying to get a few left city lights so that you might be able to get some of the lightning that's occurring here and again the core looks like it's going to pass just to the north of me and I'm looking on my shot to the southwest so south southwest you might say really all right so I you're at Fair Haven Baptist Church Fair Haven is on you SAT a little west of the city of Demopolis and again Brian that thing's going to be pretty close to you and one of the problems we're fighting here in the weather office as you look at this let me just say Brian you know the problem we have here the radar coverage is not good in that part of the state the radar beam from Birmingham fact I'll give you an exact figure here the radar beam from Birmingham is 7,500 feet above ground level it's not down there at the surface where you've got the rotation you can look at this from from Columbus Mississippi from mobile from Jackson Mississippi they've all got problems they're all and in many cases over 10,000 feet so again I just wanted to let you know that that's an issue here but again for those watching here and by the way if if you can be sure that we're streaming this live on Facebook I'm looking over on the social media channel I'm not seeing that so if you can get the guys over there to be sure that we're on Facebook we're gonna be here for a while so again possibility of a tornado right here and Brian what's the environment like I would imagine it's got to be warm and muggy you're pretty unstable air down there it very much is James that temperature off the the vehicles thermometer is 70 degrees and it was actually coming down here from Utah it was actually around 68 67 kind of bouncing back and forth but when I got to Demopolis it has actually warmed up and interestingly enough right now James I just opened the door it is close to calm right now right here there seems to be almost no wind blowing I know there must be some wind blowing but there doesn't seem to be any wind blowing down at the ground level well so again if you're just joining us we are here because we have a tornado warning in effect for not only North Marengo County where Brian is located but also for parts of Hale County and southern green let's keep those double boxes going we want to keep these on the air just in case and Brian let's go back to the dilemma how many times over the years have we dealt with this nighttime tornadoes a thunderstorm so you've trained all the spotters and you're dealing with what you've been teaching you have to wait for lightning to illuminate something that you might see and this is not easy it is not lightning can be helpful but it also when it flashes almost continuously the strobe effect makes it very difficult to be able to identify anything but right now the one good thing is I'm not seeing any low clouds that are streaming to the north indicating that you know I'm on the edge of that rotation so hopefully we're okay right here and I just noticed that the trees have begun to pick up a little bit of motion from the stillness that I just had a few minutes ago alright and again for those just joining us Brian is out on highway 80 not too far from Demopoulos high school and the the Athletic Complex out there at Fair Haven Baptist Church everybody in Demopolis knows where that is and again he's in a pretty good position more than likely Brian it looks like this mat might pass a smidgen north of you you think yes that's what I'm thinking James it sure looks that way based on radar in it we were getting a pretty good velocity signature now and it looks like it's gonna be north of you yeah I wish I could put my location on your map but I am I am just to the south of that core that is occurring and the wind has begun to pick up a little bit and one of the good things I'm seeing is that we're getting a west to east flow here right now so if there is if there is a tornado with this storm it's got to be just to my north okay and it's I noticed the radar was indicating the potential for three-inch hail I haven't seen any hail yet but then again the has the right core with what appears to be that sort of pink color which is like 70 DB Z's that thing is just to the north of me yeah indeed again I don't know if you're turning the light on and inside the cab of the Jeep but when you do that and can't see the re that's okay yeah if you can just there we go that that eliminates our ability to see out the window I understand it's pitch-black I've been in that vehicle many times again Brian's in our storm chaser and I don't know if we can take wek so five really quickly JD I just wanted to show his location I can't show Brian's location on a map again this is a map depicting Demopoulos and again you can see that he is right there right off us 80 at Fair Haven Baptist Church I'll kind of pulled this out a little bit and again you can see his location in relation to downtown Demopoulos sees probably about two miles south of downtown Demopoulos think where the City Hall is located in the square so let's go back to the double box configuration here and tailors indicating that we might have a debris signature and again we've had a Brian debris has been lofted on this thing to 18,000 feet and it's still there it is still there and I have reason to believe that there's a tornado the and again it might be out near or just north of the river the Tombigbee out there near the Lock and Dam and again the the problem we have but boy I'm getting an extreme velocity signature on this thing it could be near the lock and dam and on that track it might take it a smidgen north of downtown Demopolis up toward the old yacht basin it's gonna cross us 43 but let me just say this nobody and I mean nobody should be driving on us forty three from downtown Demopolis north to fork 'ln you just stop if you got a way of hearing me if you're listening to an app on your phone if you're Facebook whatever if you're hearing my voice you got to get off a car is a deathtrap during a tornado you can't be in one you've got to get out of there so again nobody should be on us 43 here between downtown Demopoulos and fork lend in Greene County and Bryan any sign of any wall cloud that you can see from your vantage point there not not that I can see James again the lightning is your friend and also your enemy the way it strobes makes it very hard to see what motion is actually occurring up there but we're definitely getting a south to Southwest flow here at my location which would indicate that any rotation may have gone by already yes so what I think you might want to do Bryan is get on you SAT and then turn north upon us 43 coming through the middle of Demopoulos and we might get you up near the Civic Center the police station up on the northern side of town and you stop there and we'll that will put you in a little better position to see this and that will be a safe place you're on the south side of this we want to keep Brian on the south side of this he's coming in the back way and this is what we teach the spotters to do and again this is really hard and we encourage everybody don't you dare do this unless you've been trained as a spotter perfectly trained for multiple times yes sir and I have pulled out two you SAT on whatever this little street is by the Fairhaven Baptist Church Fairview Baptist er but there's definitely a lowering to my north I can see it with the lightning it's bright to the slightly west of me and it's right to the slightly east of me but in between it's very black and very dark right in front of me and the problem is of course I have some trees and a couple of structures in the way but I can't really see all the way to the ground but it definitely looks ominous yeah you know what I do Brian I would again get up on 43 go through downtown Demopolis and I would even say at this point and let me just say that we still want people in Demopolis sheltered even though we really believe this is passing north of downtown Demopolis you might want to get up toward the bridge I think it's safe now Brian to get up on the king bridge over the warrior river and again there's not really a safe place to stop on the bridge but as you go over the bridge that might give you a decent look into this thing and it's going to be crossing us 43 right now just north of Demopoulos probably a smidgen north of the river bridge and the far southern tip of Greene County that's the reason Greene County is under a tornado warning here so again we're going to keep that shot up and again this thing is also good news that the power is still on where I am here I'm getting pretty close to the intersection we're 43 and 80 come together okay and let me turn our power on in all directions from my location right so I think the city of Demopoulos itself is going to be south of this it's going to move just north of the city of Demopoulos most likely it sure looked like it was close to the lock and dam on the river and then it's scooted out just north of town so it'll be interesting to see the shot that you see crossing the river in in Demopolis here and you'll be over that bridge and probably about three or four minutes we're gonna leave the double boxes up and let me just say this is the only tornado warning we have in the whole state right now so we're focusing exclusively on this one often we have to bounce between different storms we don't have to do that right now because we just have one but let me just say this if this thing stays down if it stays and if it keeps this trajectory and if it maintains that intensity this could very well scoot through parts of central Alabama winding up in counties like Chilton or Shelby or Bibb here in a little bit so this could affect a lot of folks over the course of the next hour or so and again we remind you this has been a long track supercell storm with origins back in Mississippi t but again Greene County this is Hale County and if that continues this is Bibb and this is Perry right here that will keep coming up through Bibb and ultimately coming into Shelby counties so that's the way it is now to understand this could weaken the dynamics tonight will slowly be lifting away when that happens it's hard to say but at some point these will weaken when that happens we don't know but this has shown no evidence of weakening so we'll pop the radar back on this graphic and again if you're just joining us we're here because we have a tornado warning in effect this does include the city of Greensboro and basically a pretty good chunk of Hale County excluding Akron and Moundville these two communities up in the northern part of Hale County are not involved in this and we stress Utah in Greene County you are not in this warning this it's raining and you've got thunder and lightning the weather is not good but in terms of a tornado threat it's this storm right here cutting across extreme southern green this is for clim on US highway 43 it'll be crossing out around Arcola Road back out toward the city of Greensboro if you're in the city of Greensboro you should be sheltered an analog to this and I'm not saying we have a tornado like this with this storm but in terms of the track an analog would be May 27th 1973 old-timers might remember that that was a long-lasting supercell storm that pant came just north of Demopoulos like this and hit Greensboro and hit the town of Brent in Bibb County on a Sunday night back in 1973 and then moved through Shelby County and finally lifted over on the slope of Mount she hon Brian you've heard all about that tornado I know over the years oh yes absolutely unfortunately I'm still not being able to see much James yeah I think Brian when you get on top of the warrior bridge on us 43 the River Bridge that will give you that magical shot that's the highest point in that flatland this is Prairie Lane in the Black Belt region of West Alabama so you don't have a lot of hills up there but that bridge over the warrior just north the Demopolis is pretty elevated so once Brian gets up there we can give Demopoulos an all-clear I'd say in about five minutes I'm not ready to do that but again the weather service in Birmingham is calling this a confirmed and this is their verbage not mine but I would agree with this they're calling this a confirmed large and extremely dangerous tornado near Demopolis moving northeast at 40 okay so and again based on its history you just have to respect this particular thunderstorm so we will be staying here with you until these warnings expire and hopefully that will be soon but it might not be soon so in the other thing to remember as this continues moving to the Northeast this particular thunderstorm will be closer and closer to the radar the radar we're using right now is at the Shelby County Airport and again that will give us a lower and lower and lower angle into this thing and a better view what's happening in the lower levels of the storm and again the beam at this point still about 7,000 feet off the ground again let me take Brian's full screen for just a second looks like Brian you are on us 43 you've come through downtown and you're gonna be on that bridge here in just a minute you're gonna be passing the the Civic Center is over there on the left the old yacht basin is on the left and have you noticed any lowering evidence of a wall cloud or a tornado so far so far no and I'm kind of hopeful here because it seems that all the power lights are on as far as I can see there's a lot of scud but so far no evidence of a funnel or tornado and the power still on even along the river here okay yeah we're we're watching it and with this expanded view we can see this and again we want everybody in Demopoulos to say sheltered for just a few more minutes we'll be able to give you an all-clear shortly the rotation is now north of Demopolis it looks like it's just crossed over us 43 and again brian is going to be up on that bridge here very shortly and there's a lot of there's a lot of small debris in the road I don't think you can see the road that well but there's a lot of very small debris like you know leaves and the ends of twigs nothing in the way of any serious downed trees or anything like that but certainly the evidence that there's been some 35 40 mile an hour winds through the air because of the fine debris that's on the highway and that's going to be that inflow coming into the storm which passed a little north of there but again give me about two more minutes I'll give Demopolis an all-clear the circulation is clearly northeast of Demopolis now moving up in the direction of Greensboro but again understand if you're in Greensboro in Hale County you need to be sheltered now and we save being sheltered that means no mobile homes that is not a shelter during a tornado if you live in a trailer a mobile home you've got to get out and go to a more significant structure and hopefully you thought about that this morning and have a plan if you are in Hale County in Greensboro or New Bern you need to enact that plan right now and in a site built home we want people goodness I'm watching the Scud Brian is is the lightning illuminates that but in a in a site built home we want you to be in a small room like a hall closet bathroom lowest floor near the center and no windows and you don't have to be underground you don't we just want you in a small room on the lowest floor if your house is one level then you're fine right there so this is man this is hard stuff Brian but again those flashes are giving us pretty good signs of the Scud that is north of that it looks like you're coming up on the bridge now yes I'm actually on the bridge right now and not seeing anything other than just the Scud and again you can see to my right you can see that the power is on those down by the water the power is on so indications that maybe we've dodged a bullet here okay well good deal it would be very interesting you know what I want you to keep going Brian for maybe two or three miles and let's see if you can find a damage path across us 43 okay and again we'll see how that goes now the problem you have Brian is when you get up 43 there's no way to go east because of the Warrior River so you're probably going to have to turn around go back down through Demopoulos and then cut over up highway 69 to go to Greensboro the other option of course is to go to Utah come back down Highway 14 I'll leave that up to you but obviously the next mission for you is to get over toward Greensboro but again not Brian let's go to the double box now and that we've Bryan has been up on that on the bridge the William Rufus King bridge and again is ready now yes so this is the circulation couplet right here this is the velocity couplet very strong indication of a tornado that is now east of us 43 and we could give Demopolis an all-clear if you live in the city of Demopolis you can get out of your safe place and go about your business now because this tornado is now north and east of the city of Demopolis moving away from you now you're gonna have rain and thunder and the risk of severe weather isn't necessarily over for you but this tornadic circulation are possible we believe it is a tornado here because we've seen debris that's been lofted again at one point debris was loft into 18,000 feet using the correlation coefficient product but again this tornadic circulation is now in this phase where it's crossing the river and it's very close to the Greene County generating plant that's owned by Alabama power company that's a large facility that's on the Warrior River and that tornadic circulation is very close to the Green County generating plant right now and it will be crossing the river once it crosses the warrior it's going to cross over into Hale County and Bryan what do you got there looks like you stopped for a second I'm turning around to go back to modeling okay I got your good deal so brought what Bryan's gonna do is gonna go back and then come up highway 69 on the back edge of this and again that no matter who you are we don't care who you are you'd be the world's greatest weatherman but you can't be in an unsafe place during a tornado it's this is dangerous stuff we're talking about and nobody and I mean nobody should be out at night doing what Brian is doing Brian has trained over 10,000 store spotters and he'll be the first to tell you this ain't easy but Brian's going to go back through Demopolis and up that way and I can tell you that people are heating your words I haven't seen a car oh here comes one there you go we well we gave them an all-clear so it's it's okay now we've gotten an all-clear to the to the city of Demopolis but again the concern now is shifting up to to Greensboro and those folks in the Hale County we're getting a report now of one home damaged west of Demopolis with three injuries and that report is from the Marengo County EMA director so again there's no doubt there's a tornado this come through here finding a path in the dark we're not going to put Brian on a wild goose chase for a long time we're trying to get Brian in a position so we can see a wall cloud or a tornado because we know if you see that then you do something but again one home damaged west of Demopoulos with three injuries and that's from the moringa County EMA director and that is there's still some strong winds James I'm coming up here on the bridge and the wind is pretty good yeah it's and again we're you're in a situation Brian in that departing storm you're still probably getting some inflow into the back side of that and again if you're what for those of you watching on the television side you can see the double boxes that's Brian Peters and our storm chaser he is in Demopolis in Marengo County he came north across the river a few miles up u.s. 43 did not find any tornado damage is going to go back into Demopoulos then curved back up highway 69 to go up toward Greensboro in fact what he's gonna do is come back down here here and go up this way you want to stay on the south side of this as the storm moves northeast the best chance of seeing a wall cloud or a tornado is going to be on that south western flank of the storm but remember I think I'm getting I think I'm getting 45 mile an hour wind right now Wow okay there's debris going across the highway goodness all right debris so again and understand the weather's still not good in Demopolis when I say all clear that doesn't mean the sky clears you've got rain and thunder and lightning and it's windy but in terms of the tornado the tornado has now crossed over the warrior this is the Warrior River right here and next in line will be the town of Greensburg Greensburg the county seat of Hale County and again the call to action here if you're anywhere from Demopolis to Greensboro you need to be in a safe place coming down from Greensboro you've got those three fingers highways 69 61 and 25 anybody along those three highways all the way back up into Greensboro you need to be in a safe place and if you're watching us in Brent or a Centreville or pond Ville watch this thing carefully and again please understand I'm not saying this is an ef-4 tornado like what we had in 1973 I'm saying there's a pretty good chance we have a tornado here and this thing has been producing damage for a long time and the track is very similar to that night and that night the track was north of Demopoulos Greensboro brims it took out the old National Weather Service WS our 57 radar site just southwest of Centerville at Pond Ville on that horrible Sunday night then it came through southern Shelby County and again it lifted on the eastern or the slope of Mount Chiho on the eastern side of the state one of the analogues that came up in terms of the conditions that we're having tonight was April 18th of 1969 during that event we had a long-track tornado but again there's your couplet right there very easy to identify it is clearly out of green out of Marengo it's now in Hale County coming right up on Demopoulos and again this thing is going to be on Greensboro or Greensboro pretty soon here so Demopoulos from this tornado threat you're all clear now it's raining it's windy there's thunder and lightning but in terms of the next size of the town and the path of this thing it's going to be Greensboro which is right here so again everybody in Greensboro and Hale County you need to be in a good safe place and again that's 69 25 61 right there and that's highway 25 that goes up towards Centerville and Brent and based on the history that we're seeing if you do an ant analogy back to May 27 1973 we clearly don't want anybody driving up highway 25 from Greensboro to Brent over the next hour or so just trust me that's a very good call and I know it's inconvenient where people have to be at work or they have to go somewhere but there are some things in life just not worth the risk and tonight that's one of those nights where you don't want to be driving in the dark when there could be a significant tornado in through here the tornado warning continues for Hale County the warning has been cancelled for green and Marengo the warning is in effect for hail until 9:15 it's 837 right now a tornado eight miles southwest of Greensboro moving northeast at 50 the forward motion here is 50 miles per hour and again you can clearly see next in line it's going to be Bibb County after Bibb County next in line it's going to be Shelby counties so everybody that's in Bibb and Shelby you need to kind of stay tuned and watch and see what's going on here and if we call out if your town if you're in one of these polygons what do you do you respect the polygon and you go to a safe place you're not in a car you're not in a mobile home when you go in your safe place you're gonna do three things for us you're gonna put on a helmet and that's everybody that's not just for kids we want everybody even if you're as old as dirt like me every human life is precious and a lot of people that are seriously injured in tornado events are injured because of blunt force trauma wounds to the skull region a simple bicycle helmet a batting helmet if you have kids that play sports a motorcycle helmet and again that's for everybody and in that safe place we want you to have portable air horns in case you need help first responders can hear that from a great distance and hard sole shoes if you have to walk for help you don't want to walk over a tornado debris field at night it's the worst possible thing you could do that would tear your feet up so those are just some things to think about and preferably you have those in your safe place now because we talk about that all the time emergency managers are reporting an 18-wheeler overturned at 57 and u.s. 80 just west of Demopoulos okay thanks Taylor again this is overturned by win this is County Road 57 and US highway 80 west of Demopoulos out toward the rooster bridge the rooster bridge crosses the Tombigbee out near the old Gulf states paper side out there but again that's coming from Marengo County EMA so we've had reports of one home damaged with three injuries and an 18-wheeler overturned by strong winds located west of Demopolis is that tornado came through the city of Demopolis turned out okay with this it passed north of the city of Demopoulos and again it's coming up on Greensboro which is right here Brian tell us where you are now which it looks like it's pouring rain there I'm back at u.s. 80 and 43 and I saw some blue light so I'm going to turn that way but I think it's just an officer trying to be careful we're probably getting between 40 and 50 mile an hour winds right here James on the leading edge that is trailing back from Demopolis back to the West the wind has been really ferocious here not a lot of trees to get any small debris from but it's more like hurricane looking stuff as the curtains come across the highway yeah okay again Brian we're looking at the reports from our team of sky watchers from all of the different sources we have and again we want everybody paying close attention tonight now for what I want to do let's quickly show the big picture here Taylor because a lot of people are asking questions and those questions are valid first off the tornado watch is canceled for the Tennessee Valley they've had a rough night and let me just say two people have been killed tonight in northern Lawrence County and it's not a good situation we don't have firm details on that but in northern Lawrence County up around Town Creek in Cortland we've had very significant damage at least two people have been killed we understand there's with least one person missing and the search-and-rescue operation is underway and that happened earlier this evening now let's put the radar on here and you're just gonna see a big massive rain through parts of North Alabama this is helping to stabilize the atmosphere just a big old cold pool so we have rain falling and counties like Lamar Fayette Walker Kuhlman Winston and Blount the odds of additional severe weather are low that far north they're not zero but they're low I'd say the greater chance of any tornado activity is basically with this one supercell storm and that's basically the only tornado warning on the board right now and you can see that that one supercell storm is going to be coming up in the direction of Bibb and Shelby counties and ultimately st. Claire now the air on the eastern side of the state is a little more stable the dynamics are not as impressive so at some point this thing oughta weakened but man it has been hanging in like a rusty fishhook all afternoon into the night this thing originated way back in Mississippi and that is a very dangerous storm so again north of Interstate 20 I can't say there's no chance of severe weather tonight but the odds are low because your rain cooled and you're stable and there's just a big cold pool up and through here but again this situation down here is what we have to watch especially Bibb and Shelby and st. Clair will see how long it lasts will be right here to walk you through it so let's zoom back into this and again this is your warning in effect for hail county and you can see that that circulation should be awfully close to Greensboro right now I mean really close to Greensboro in fact there you go boy this is dangerous that is an extremely dangerous storm if you're in Greensboro you've got to be sheltered now you should have been sheltered thirty minutes ago if you're in Greensboro if you know anybody in Greensboro call them on the phone now text them now and tell them to get into a safe place they go into a bathroom a closet a hall and the site-built home if you've got a helmet put it on if you're not just trying to cover your head people in mobile homes can't be in a mobile home you should have left when the warning was issued thirty minutes ago or so but again that is an extremely dangerous tornadic signature that's coming right up into Greensboro it might pass a little west in north of downtown but man it's gonna be close I mean everybody in the city limits or anywhere within five miles of Greensboro you've got to be in a safe place and again what's going to happen this thing is going to be trucking right down highway 25 Alabama Highway 25 that's the road from Greensboro to Brent and again the analogy is very strong to May 27th 1973 that horrible Sunday night so long ago where we had an event like this and a horrible ef4 tornado and I'm not saying that's an ef-4 tornado it might be might be a smaller one we just don't know that you can't tell by looking at radar but as the beam gets lower and lower in the storm which is the case because it is getting closer to the radar you can see very strong evidence of trouble here let's look at an attribute table if we can tailor some of the parameters on this particular thunderstorm and again this is only about three or four miles southwest of Greensboro right now so we'll pop on some of the storm attributes if we can and if we can't that's okay there's the full screen here and if not don't worry about it let's go back to the double I want to keep both boxes going because Brian soon is going to be coming up into this storm on the south side okay his shy there we go Thank You JD Brian is gonna be going through an area where there's going to be you know cell service is going to come and go and Brian obviously to deliver that video back has to rely on the cellular service but that shot will be back so we'll go full screen with this and if we get Brian shot back we'll take that what Brian's gonna do he's gonna come in from highway 69 from the south and again the object of the game you want to be back here if you're a storm spotter because this is moving away from you that's where we want the spotters to be they want to be safe you never want to be here you want to be down here because that's moving away from you but again no doubt no doubt if you're in Greensboro you've got to be in a safe place this is a very serious dangerous storm that has produced damage across a large area this has been consistently severe in producing a tornado at times for at least 120 130 miles way back into parts of central Mississippi and it shows no sign of letting up as the air down here is still very unstable and right with temperatures in the 70s and dew points up in the 60s on this December night so this is your polygon right here and again the next county in line is going to be Bibb County so I would imagine here in a matter of minutes The Weather Service is going to go ahead and post a warning forbid not yet but I would imagine that's gonna happen fairly soon so if you are in Brent if you are in Panvel if you are in Centerville just be watching this very carefully if you are in montevallo or alabaster or Halina or Calera watch this carefully and I'm not saying it's going to come through your town but I'm saying the trajectory if it holds we'll take it close to where you live and this is a nighttime situation we have these frequently here in this state and don't wait until you see it or hear it don't wait until you hear some siren you just need to go if you get into a polygon that's why we say you respect the polygon if you're in it you do something immediately and if you're not don't worry about it but again now you can see that let's go a little closer let's take a closer look at this storm and again we're focusing on the velocity because this probably tells the story better than anything else again that's your tornadic circulation let's expand it out just a little bit so we can see downtown Greensboro which is located right here possible tornadic circulation right here it looks like it's about to cross highway 14 cross highway 69 in a matter of minutes and anybody with a Greensboro mailing address should be sheltered right now but especially if you live in the city limits of Greensboro I would say the greatest chance of this tornado affecting you will be on the north and west side of Greensboro much like the situation in Demopolis but again remember the beam is still probably four or five thousand feet off the ground right here we don't exactly know where that sucker is down on the ground and once we get the beam a little lower we're more confident and calling out specific landmarks but often times storms can be tilted and that doesn't necessarily reflect the exact position so Brian we've got you back now Brian it looks like you're on us 80 going back over towards 69 and you'll be taking a left-hand turn here soon right yes I just entered Hale County okay on us 80 and again producing a lot of lightning right and let me just remind you to that for everybody watching us on the television side if you're watching us in our TV market you're under a tornado watch until 11:00 that the watch has been cancelled for the far northern part of the state up in the Tennessee Valley and Northwest Alabama notice the counties have been taken out here in fact Winston and Marion you've been taken out of this so the risk of severe weather is ended it's just a low-end threat north of Interstate 24 these counties Birmingham Tuscaloosa Gadsden on Tianna Kuhlman Fayette Jasper Vernon yes there's a chance of severe weather no doubt about that but it's a lower-end chance the greater instability values are down here south of Interstate 20 and again that storm remains very strong remains a storm that shows strong signs of producing a tornado right now and you can see that will come through Bibb and Shelby if it holds together and maybe st. Claire at some point logic would suggest that thing will finally start to weaken and choke itself out it might occlude the whole thing just goes away that happens sometimes but there's the very small polygon here because this thing will be moving out of Hale County soon but again for Demopolis your danger is over and for Green County Southern Green County for Clint your danger is over and now the focus is on Hale specifically Greensboro so let's go back to the radar and we're gonna show the velocity display because the velocity really tells the story you can see with the reflectivity it's just a big old massive red but you start drilling down and looking at the velocity and that looks pretty good I will say it's broadened out a little bit over the last couple of volume scans which is a great thing but this has been somewhat cyclical we've seen it broaden out and then tighten right back up at one point coming through parts of Choctaw County this thing was tighter than a ticks backside but now it's a little broader but still a dangerous storm and that circulation looks like it might be crossing highway 14 a little west of Greensboro 69 a little north of Greensboro but it's still closed so again everybody in downtown points west and north need to stay sheltered I will say this if you're south of Greensboro in Hale County you're all clear here south of Greensboro and let me I don't like to use that word all clear that you think clear skies no it's going to be raining and thunder and lightning and the weather's not good we're talking the danger from a tornado so if you're south of Greensboro we'll give you an all-clear from the tornado danger still you're gonna have rain thunder and lightning the main concern now it's obviously areas west and north of Greensboro just maybe by a few miles and again downtown Greensboro still needs to be sheltered nobody should be traveling on the highway 69 north headed out of Greensboro between Greensboro and Havana Junction the home of the legendary JBL eeeh so hey James yes National Weather Service is saying that they're keeping an eye on this storm here in Pickens County as well for possible rotation yeah that's a loft right something to keep an eye on right and again this is just you know in our business we call this junk convection it's it's you get these little spinning as you know you see signs of rotation way off the ground and never gets down to the ground but truth you have to watch these and that's why we say there's a lower-end threat up here but it's just something to watch now but there's a lot of rain thunder lightning you're in Pickens or Fayette or Coleman or Walker counties but nothing severe so let's go back down and we'll focus on that hail County storm now if we have another warning we'll start bouncing around you know the deal will go from one storm to the other but we're gonna stay right on this one and again you can see that it's just pouring rain torrential rain there might be some hail falling south of Greensboro but let's pop on the velocity and you can see the tornado signature right here which is just west of Greensboro and let's take a look at the see see the correlation coefficient to see if we see a debris being lofted and that's a pretty noisy look right there it's not well-defined so that's a good thing when you see a really strong negative that means the radar is telling us there's something different about that target it's not precipitation it's something else it doesn't correlate with everything else in the bin which means it's the tree limbs or parts of trees or parts of buildings being lofted we just don't see a well-defined negative correlation coefficient spike right there which is a good thing and again the circulation is a little broader and we hope that trend continues and we hope there's no warning for bibb in Shelby County but still that's pretty dangerous-looking storm right here there's no doubt we've got strong circulation here that could be a tornado down it's crossed over highway 14 it's not crossing over highway 69 just north of Greensboro and this is not that far from one of the tracks April 27 2011 that track probably a smidgen north of there but still next in line is going to be highway 25 righteous this highway right here 25 runs through the Talladega National Forest back over to Brent and our analog storm a 27 1973 that storm followed that track right up Highway 25 to Brent and we had loss of life that night five people died in Brenna nuts and again please understand I'm not saying this is an ef-4 and I'm not saying it's going to be in the same place but I'm saying it's awfully close there's a lot of similarities to this storm and that one back in 1973 most people don't remember that but by looking at weather events in the past it gives you a good idea of what might happen in the future so we'd love to do the analogs here all right Bryan we're yet it looks like you're on 69 now right yes and I'm beginning to get some more rain and there's a pretty good Westies flow across the highway here I'm generally moving north the lightning has been pretty good and I've been able to see a flat base but I have not seen anything that I could identify as being a tornado or any kind of wall cloud or anything like that and now I'm getting into more rain which is making it even harder to see all right well I can't man is hard yeah I you know Bryan we have the we're in a studio here and that that's what I do and you're out in the field and I know how hard that is people often don't understand you're out the field and it's just pitch black and you're waiting on lightning but understand we've got you back the one thing about the way we do it we have Bryan's back so we will never route Brian and Brian knows himself he's got of course radar in the chaser to go into a dangerous part of this storm but again we've got it could be a tornado circulation crossing highway 69 just north of Greensboro just north of Greensboro maybe by three or four miles next it'll be crossing highway 25 out here and this is getting into a pretty sparsely populated area between Greensboro and brynn understand people do live there and if you live there if one person lives there that's all that matters every human life is precious and that's the reason we're here but the next population center with this storm up the line its Brent and Centerville those two communities in Bibb counties so we're gonna be watching the storms structure very carefully and The Weather Service in Birmingham will have a decision to make do they extend the tornado warning there's no doubt the circulation is not as tight it's broader we don't see debris being lofted this does not have the same structure it did 15 30 minutes ago when it came through just west and north of Demopolis and I would imagine tomorrow morning at the first light of day we'll be able to find a damage path west of Demopolis in fact we know we've had three injuries west of Demopolis with this with a with a house that was damaged and more likely it got out there around the lock and dam came across 43 north of downtown Demopolis and now it's coming just north of Greensboro just north of Greensboro and from the it's going to keep on going right down highway 25 ultimately coming back over here toward Brent and Centerville which is in Bibb County so we'll see how the Weather Service handles this it is now 855 the warning is scheduled to expire at 9:15 but the storm is going to be out of the county by 9:15 and Brian you're gonna have that fun part of chasing a storm that's moving 50 miles an hour buddy yeah and I'm not moving 50 miles an hour yeah I'm actually doing about 30 yeah we and we look great yeah the rain is just intense yeah you stay sent me more of a hurricane with the heat flying across the highway now we're watching your stream there it looks like it's just absolutely pouring a quagmire down there so The Weather Service is not planning on extending the warning at this time because it's broad and I think that's probably the right call so at the moment at the moment there's a chance this thing will be canceled once it exits hail County and there will not be a warning extended back out into Bibb County but that might change we'll see the one thing that the Weather Service in Birmingham has gotten so good at this is reducing the number of false alarms there was a time in fact in 2011 during the big outbreak the false alarm ratio was sitting around 80 80 percent of all tornado warnings were false alarms and they have done an amazing job of knocking that down from 80 down into the 30s and I never thought it would be that low they went back to basic science so warnings really mean something now and they're not just going to issue a tornado warning based on some broad circulation where there's obviously not a tornado and that's the right thing to do the easiest thing to do is hit that warning button every time you see a spinner on radar and before you know it yeah you'll get you every tornado but your warning false alarm ratios 90% so they've done a great job with that so they will not extend this if they believe there's no tornado here and again no doubt its broad is their broad rotation yes tornado signature probably not at this time so the warning will continue until 9:15 or until the time the storm exits the county and again the storm has cleared Greensboro so we're gonna give an all-clear to the city of Greensboro which is right here and again please understand when I say all-clear that doesn't mean you look up and you see stars it is pouring rain it is Wendy there is thunder there is lightning the weather is not good but in terms of a danger danger from a tornado will give you an all-clear from that that's what that means is the circulation that is broad is now northeast of Greensboro moving northeast away from you and this thing is moving at 50 miles per hour or I'm sorry the latest update is said now saying 40 miles per hour from The Weather Service still that thing is moving along at a pretty good clip so for the city of Greensboro we'll give you an all-clear so we have had a supercell storm with strong evidence of a tornado passing just west and north of Demopoulos just west and north of Greensboro and you just get the idea if that thing what a position maybe five miles to the south both of those cities could have been hit tonight so you are blessed if you live in Demopolis or Greensboro and the western side of the state tonight and understand this thing has produced a lot of damage and while we have this storm we're still watching that's a pretty good looking you know that like I say this could tighten right back up but let me say this if you don't know this we have had two deaths in the state tonight from tornadoes the two deaths came in northern Lawrence County up in the Tennessee Valley from that little mesoscale vortex that came through a book in vortex this was this evening and it produced severe storms across the Tennessee Valley we had a tornado near Cortland in town Creek up in northern Lawrence and that's where the two fatalities have been reported and there are injuries in addition to that our news department is working on that and we'll hit the ten o'clock news and let's see it's 859 and 1 hours so once we join Chris for the news we'll get more on the fatalities up in the northern part of the state tonight but again that's the sad part of this and I guess say we this is one of these situations where going into this we knew that the weather was going to be rough in spots and it's been really rough in parts of Mississippi today back in that moderate risk area no we can't let's pop up the latest convective outlook Taylor I wanted to show this from the Storm Prediction Center they update this frequently during the day and this is going to be an update from about six seven o'clock this evening and the moderate risk is gone we have an enhanced risk where that thunderstorm is located right now near Greensboro Tuscaloosa Greensboro Demopolis back down into south Mississippi that's your enhanced risk level three out of five the standard risk over most of the state that's level two out of five that technically is called slight mean though that word is misleading but most of the state and level two and then we have a low-end level one over to the eastern suburbs of Atlanta and when the next update comes out that'll be the outlook for tomorrow but with time the threat will gradually diminish as the air becomes more stable and the upper dynamics lifts away to the northeast with this trough has produced all of the active weather today so let's go back to the radar and again if you're just joining us it is 9 o'clock this is WB MA Birmingham we are in the middle of tornado warning coverage tonight we have one supercell storm and tail all right this is the only one the only warning in the whole southeast Wow so there's one and that's it which is good that's a good sign we don't have any other super cells in Mississippi that are tornadic we have nothing happening and again let me make this perfectly clear if you're in Tuscaloosa it's pouring rain right now but there is no evidence of any severe weather in Tuscaloosa County Pickens County Fayette Walker Kuhlman and again it is just coming down in sheets it's windy you've got thunder and lightning but remember to be severe a storm has to have winds of 58 miles per hour or greater or hail one inch or larger in diameter we have nothing like that in this batch of heavy rain here and of course that rain is helping to stabilize the atmosphere and I honestly don't think we have many severe weather issues north of Interstate 20 the problem it's that one one storm right here that's down to the south of Tuscaloosa it's south of Tuscaloosa by about 3035 miles moving northeast and that storm is going to be moved pushing up into big County and again if it holds together it's going to come up into Shelby County but the air is a little more stable over here on this side of the state so hopefully the weakening trend will continue so let's go back and take a look at the velocity product the single-site velocity product on the storm that is now northeast of Greensboro and this storm still looks pretty tight I mean that thing is tightened back up we've seen it loosen up a little bit it's it seems to be a little cyclical and again that's a pretty good-looking signature here so if indeed it stays tight like that you're gonna see that warning expanded up into parts of Bibb County and maybe northern Perry County and it's riding right up highway 25 Highway 25 that's an amazing road to travel it runs from Leeds east of Birmingham all the way down to sunny south near Thomasville you've got the mountains in Shelby County and you get down into South Alabama I love that road and this is the stretch where it's just flat it's flat land here from Greensboro back up into big County the old radar site for years and years old timers remember this for years our radar site that served this part of the state was down in Bibb County near Centerville and Brent and that radar site was destroyed by that tornado in 1973 and it's going to be again moving along pretty close to that track so obviously nobody should be driving along highway 25 between Greensboro and Brent over the next 30 minutes let's just get this thing out of here and then you can drive so let's bring in Brian Peters who is driving not in the path of this thing but Brian you're coming up from the south side what are your conditions like there now ah just heavy rain right now James I'm sure the ground is probably appreciating it but Brian Peters isn't appreciating it because the visibility is way down no sign of any hail haven't seen anything in the way of any significant damage of any sort maybe a little bit of that fine debris which indicate 35 to 40 miles an hour and Brian real quick we've got the new tornado warning and I think they pretty much had to do that The Weather Service has posted a tornado warning now for parts Langan big hail and Perry counties until 10:00 and that certainly is the right thing to do based on the fact that the velocity has tightened up again on this thing so again we have a tornado warning now in effect for parts of Bibb County and parts of Perry County as well as parts of Hale County let me kind of explain who's in and who's out west blocked and you're in and if you're in that means you do something Yodas a place west locked in you're in Centreville you're in Brent you're in again Randolph you're in Pond Ville you're in now in terms of Perry County this thing Highberger I'll say you're in your on the far southern extent of the polygon here this is Highberger right down highway five that's highway 25 and this is hail county in that far eastern part of hail county is involved here now this is Shelby right here okay so that's why we've been saying if this thing stays on that track it could wind up in Shelby County and it just doesn't want to go away let's go back to the velocity display on this thing and right now it's in a fairly sparsely populated part far eastern Hale County and yeah it's tight I mean that thing that's a tornado signature right there highway 25 is right here this is the county line this is Hale County and this is Bibb County this is pond ville right up here that's the site of the old WS our 57 radar site and that's just nasty looking that's a very well defined tornado signature this thing I mean this thing won't go away it's it's hanging in there like a hair in a biscuit and as long as it's like that the warnings will be issued and you've got to take this thing seriously so again if you're in big County in any of those places we called out basically most of the county you've got to be in a safe place and what you need to do now is to think about these things number one don't be driving I mean nobody should be driving in a tornado warning polygon we see it over and over and over you punch up our skycams and people are driving around just like it's a sunny day a car is a deathtrap during a tornado a car is a marvelous thing but you can't be in a car during a tornado and if you're in a tornado warning polygon same thing for mobile homes wonderful affordable housing but you can't stay in them during a tornado warning if you're in a polygon you've got to get out so now is the time to get out of the mobile home if you're in big County and get to that designated shelter where you go or a business that's open 24/7 a gas station a restaurant anywhere that's a site build structure that has small rooms and bathrooms and halls in there and again this is something you don't think about on a night like tonight when there's a tornado ten miles away you think about this on a sunny day where there's nothing going and make plans for what happens late at night or during the course of the day so now is the time you implement that plan and this tornado is basically sitting now on the Perry Hale County line this is Hale and this is actually Perry Bibb County is up here that's the county line this is bid this is Perry and this is hail right here that thing is sitting on the Perry Hale County line and we've got Brian Peters who's going to be coming in on the back edge of this thing Brian is coming up through Greensboro and that Brian's gonna come up highway 25 Brian tell us where you at right now I'm seeing some street lights I'm on yes I'm in Greensboro basically at the intersection with 1425 and 69 all kind of tied together right here I'm staying primarily with 69 and have seen a couple of spots coming in to Greensboro here like just at this intersection right here where there's obviously been 35 to 40 mile an hour wind again that debris on the on the highway but it's very small debris it's not big debris and the good news is to James everybody seems to have power so there doesn't seem to be any areas where there's been any blackout so that's good news that the wind hasn't been enough to take down power lines yeah that is that is great and again Taylor has indicated a lowering of the correlation coefficient which represents debris being lofted again that's a very well-defined TDS that is a tornado debris signature right now and again that TDS is in the far northern part of Perry County so just be aware of that we now have strong indication that there's a tornado down once again with this storm and again that is a tornado that is probably down and that again this is hail up here this is Bibb right up here and this is Perry and that's your lowered correlation coefficient this is where tornado debris is being lofted this could be tree limbs parts of trees parts of buildings things like that but it's not precipitation what this is telling us it's not rain it's not hail it's not any type of precipitation or hydrometeor it is something different and in the case of something like this it is going to be debris and again that tornado is going to be crossing out of northern Herry coming up into bib and again if you're in Centreville or Brent or West block 10 or Pond Ville the call to action right now is to be in a good safe place until this thing passes and I you know I wit the problem we have we've learned this through social science studies when we show you this stuff people don't tend to do anything and I understand that you want to see the tornado before you do something oftentimes you know during severe weather we can show during the day we can show amazing video and we have so much video that comes in but we just can't we can't do that in a situation like this because it is just so dark outside tonight but if we can can we take wex o-5 real quick for just a second this is going to be some video coming from Highberger which is in Perry County and again it's going to be awfully hard to see but this is what the sky looks like in Perry County hi Berger is along Alabama Highway five which is located down to the south of Brent and it's very close to this TDS the tornado debris signature is like the shots have been seeing for Brian we just can't see that much and we can't see any evidence of a wall cloud or a tornado here but the Lightning is almost non-stop let's go back to our double box and again it is now little after a nine o'clock I'm James spam with Taylor Sorrell over here in the studio we have Brian Peters out in the storm chaser we have a tornadic supercell thunderstorm that is now moving through the far northern part of Perry County this is about to cross up into big County Brian is on the road Brian is coming through Greensboro he's leaving Greensboro now coming up highway 25 highway 25 is this road right here so Brian's going to be coming up through here on the backside of this we want Brian on that back side that's the safe way to do this and again that storm is moving northeast Brian is moving northeast he stays on that back side and let's expand this out I want to show Centreville and Brent that's going to be the next population center in the path of this thing so let's expand it out a little bit more there we go so this is your tornado signature right here this isn't the far northwest corner of Perry County that'll be crossing into Bibb County this is Bibb right here this is Brent this is Centerville right here Centreville and Brent are basically divided by the Cahaba River rent on the Northside Centerville on the Southside and you know this could very well on that trajectory past a little north of Centerville and Brent that's what happened to Demopoulos in Greensboro that's the best possible thing that could happen unless you live in those areas the tornadic circulation stayed west and north and Demopolis west and north of Greensboro and it could stay west and north of Centerville and Brent but again we just can't guarantee that right now the right thing to do it to be in a safe place you want to be in a small room lowest floor near the center away from windows put as many walls between you and the tornado as you can put a helmet on a bicycle helmet a batting helmet a motorcycle helmet and that's not just for kids that is for everybody you might look goofy I look goofy wearing a helmet but again most people die from tornadoes from blunt force trauma wounds to the skull region you'll look back on a day like April 27 2011 many of the 252 people that died that day would be alive today if they would had a helmet on and it's not that hard to do so in your safe place we want those for just everybody and guess that you might have it it's at Christmas and we ought look this is not unusual if you've lived here a long time you know this is the core of the tornado season November December we had a horrible tornado on this day 19 years ago in Tuscaloosa an ef-4 so this is when they happen and is not that odd so again we've got a tornadic circulation right here coming up into big County that'll be moving in the general direction of Centerville and Brent it might stay a little north and west of Centerville and Brent but West block ttan down to Centerville Brent safe place you're in Randolph you're on the far southern edge of this polygon you can be in a safe place that's you know there's a course of least regret that's not a bad decision and certainly if you're in Pond Ville you want to be in a safe place Pond Veloz it's about right here you know if the old radar was here you could just look right back into this thing so Brian tell us where you are it looks like you're out of Greensboro and trucking down Highway 25 right yes yes James and I'd like to point out that in Greensboro there's some street flooding occurring especially at intersections where that water is you know ponding at one of the intersections and I went through some water that was probably close to a foot deep you know near the curb so people anybody who happens to be out driving behind this storm like I'm doing basically you want to be careful about that street flooding because it can really you know move your car around as you're driving through it yeah and indeed this this rain is coming down it's again I've been watching your stream Brian looks like you're driving through hurricane Frederick or something down here or Ivan or Katrina it looks just pure tropical downpours well has been come some of these waves of the precipitation moving across the highway remind me of a hurricane situation fortunately the winds not that strong and as I mentioned coming in to Greensboro I've seen several places where obviously the wind has been up 35 40 miles an hour but no signs of any kind of significant tornado path or any damage of any real significance just a few leaves mostly okay great and again for those that were watching we sent Brian a little north of Demopoulos to go up 43 he did not find a tornado path crossing 43 didn't go that far up 43 but again there could be one again once we get the first light of day tomorrow we're gonna see a lot of what's going on here but again the people just need to pay attention to this and if we call out your town and if you're in the polygon you've got to respect the polygon and get into a safe place and go about what you're supposed to do and if you lived here for a long time you know what you're supposed to do now the one thing we also are cognizant table a lot of people are just moving here maybe they come from California they're earthquake people they're not tornado people maybe they come here from Miami they're hurricane people they're not tornado people there's a whole different ballgame here but we'll talk you through this but the key during a tornado to stay safe it's being in a site built structure lowest floor you don't have to be underground you don't a bathroom a hallway a closet preferably near the center of the house as many walls between you and the tornado as you can get you slap on a helmet you'll be fine almost every time so that's what we want you to do in the dia is to come up with a plan way before this happens and the other half the battle is getting the warnings a lot of people do not receive tornado warnings well they think you're supposed to hear a siren no you can't you've got to have a weather radio at your house and we uh weather Wireless emergency alerts enabled on your phone so here we go and it's getting a little broader still fairly tight circulation right here and this is in the far far far northwest corner of Perry this is basically where Perry Hale Bibb all come together and this thing has been an amazing store and this thing has been lasting for a long long long time and that's going to come right up in the direction of Centerville Brent the two biggest population centers in Bibb County and again it might stay a little north of there but remember sometimes sometimes storms turn a little to the right of the mean flow the ones that are rotating like a top and that might happen understand they they typically do go in straight lines but occasionally they're right turning storms in a favorable environment like this and if that's the case that would be more of a threat that's why these polygons have the you know they're not big they're just a part of a county but they do allow for room for any errors here and if you're not in the polygon don't worry about it but obviously the next county up the line is Shelby County so if this thing stays together comes through Bibb then a warning could be needed for Shelby County fairly soon and this storm produced a lot of damage and Mississippi has produced some damage in parts of Choctaw County we've had some injuries in Marengo County three injuries a house that was damaged west of Demopoulos and some other reports we've got a report of injuries in the salt whale community of Marengo County the injuries the great news here they're non-life-threatening the injuries were to a mother and her two young children in the salt wheel community that's west of Demopoulos and again not life-threatening which is great we have had two fatalities in the state today as a result of tornadoes that was up in Lawrence County northern Lawrence County around town Creek in Cortland it has been a rough day and it's not done but we don't want anything like that but again we've heard of nose serious injuries with this storm but it did produce a lot of chaos back in Mississippi on the journey through the Magnolia state and that thing again is coming right up toward Bibb County it's crossing the county line right now that's us 82 u.s. 82 is the core drive from Tuscaloosa to Montgomery that's us 82 right here this Alabama 5 Highway 5 goes up to a North Bibb and Kathy Junction up to the north and down to the South that goes down to Marion and we'll just see if this thing continues on that track coming up into a Shelby County so Bryan it looks like the rain is not as bad where you are right now yes I'm behind the heaviest rain heaviest rain is actually also with some pretty strong cuts again not clear but wind gusts probably 40 to 45 miles an hour and this yeah the visibility is a lot better and there isn't any sign right now of any flooding along the roadway either just what I saw in Greensboro okay great and again Bryan's on that that drive from Greensboro back up to Brent and you've not seen any evidence of tornado damage I assume Bryan on that on that drive that's correct I have not seen anything again small debris indicating maybe 40 mile an hour gust but not any debris that would be significant okay and seeing some reports on social media that a lot of folks are heeding the warnings and they're going to some of the community tornado shelters which is certainly great news in fact let's take wex oh five if we can quickly this is going to be just a quick shot inside the tornado shelter in Brent in Bibb County and it's great to see that people are listening to the warnings and taking those things seriously so again let's go back to our double botch and if you're just joining us it is now not 919 I'm James Spann with Taylor ciraolo here in the weather office we have Brian Peters and that dark stormy night out there in the storm chaser watching a slow and severe storm which makes it a lot easier on us a lot of times we're working three force five storms with tornadoes tonight we're just working one this is past just north and west of Demopolis just north and west of Greensboro and now it's coming into Bibb County out of a hail then we have seen this thing go through a lot of cycles it is a cyclic storm but again it just doesn't want to go away and so anybody in Brent and Centerville you need to stay in that shelter stay in a safe place until we give you the all-clear we'll be able to do that fairly soon and if it holds together next up it's going to be Shelby County up and through here but again in your safe place you know the one thing out of all the things we talked about the big deal is the helmets we did not adequately push wearing helmets enough back in 2011 and we know that cost some lives so we encourage people to please consider getting a helmet for everybody including adults and look I know it doesn't make any sense I don't look good wearing a helmet I mean you put a batting helmet on me it's like a you know cocktail dress on a hog it just doesn't look good but it will keep you safe it will absolutely keep you safe but I hear you laughing Brian you ever seen that quite a visual there I don't I don't look good wearing a helmet but listen I know a lot of ER Doc's and they will tell you that over and over and over and over if they would have had a helmet on a simple five dollar bicycle helmet they'd be alive today so that we have not done an adequate job of pushing that points so you need to have that not just a lot of people that well it's for the kids no it's for everybody because again every life is precious and that's our position on that the air horn thing a lot of people are injured they might be lofted and they can't vocalize their need for help because of their injuries and they can't focalize anything but they can squeeze that little air horn and you can hear that for such a long way and then the hard sell shoes that's a big deal your feet can be just torn up in a tornado debris feel like that so again that's what we want you to have in your tornado safe place so again this thing's getting broad again it comes and it goes but it probably going to come right back at us so we have a relatively broad circulation now in Bibb County this thing is I'd say about maybe six seven miles west of Brent and again that's going to be moving northeast and most likely this is going to be crossing us 80 - a little to the west-northwest of brent so the call-to-action on the travel don't be driving on us 82 now again people saying well you got Brian out there driving well that's because Brian's in a safe place he's coming up behind the storm there's no danger where he is but you SAT - this thing is going to be crossing the highway between the Tuscaloosa County line and Brent and you just can't be out there in that car your car could be flipped it can be rolled it can be lofted if there's a violent tornado and a car is just the worst possible place to be West block then is up in here and again that's highway 5 this is the Cahaba River right here that's Alabama Highway 5 and again that's moving up in this direction so everybody from Brent Centerville back up to West block then up Highway 5 over to the Tuscaloosa County line on us 82 just stays sheltered and we promise we'll be here we'll give you an all-clear when that time comes and hopefully that time will come sooner than later the problem we have with this type storm is the fact that it is in a very sparsely populated part of the state and if there's damage here we're typically not going to hear about it often the cellular service is disrupted and we just don't get reports out of some rural parts of the state so again I just don't know what's happened between Greensboro and the big Perry County line right here but there's conceivable or it's conceivable there could be some tornado damage here but again this thing is broadened out which is good news and we're gonna keep an eye on this but for the moment it is much broader and Brian have you crossed over into Bibb County yet no I have not okay in fact you know I can spy on you you got GPS in that chaser I can actually blue lights running going south that's always concerning yeah and again we don't know you know in a situation like this we just don't know and again Taylor is showing the correlation coefficient product and we had that really tight spot back here and it's gonna get really broad and noisy which is a sign that maybe and I see we have a new severe thunderstorm warning let's go back to the watch warning big board and this is a new severe thunderstorm warning that's going to be south of the tornado warning this will include much of Perry County so this is a severe thunderstorm warning in effect for Perry County until 10:15 tonight this is for that segment of the storm that's south of Bibb County and the Weather Service believes there could be sufficient wind in that segment of the line - maybe exceed 50 55 miles per hour so a severe thunderstorm warning for parts of Perry County until 10:15 and again the Weather Service is watching this broad rotation now that's coming up into big County and this is Shelby right here Birmingham sits right here in fact let's expand this out let me just kind of listen you know sometimes I probably fuss too much about maps and people can't read them I look phones are great they are really cool you tell it you want to go to Joe's house and it gives you turn by turn directions to Joe's house but people who don't look at maps anymore in I understand that it's not your job to be a geography expert or a weather expert that's what we do so let me kind of explain where we are Birmingham sits right here Tuscaloosa right here this is the storm that is producing the possible tornado coming up into big County so this will not affect the city of Tuscaloosa this one storm now you're still under a tornado watch here the counties in yellow but again this one storm will not affect the city of Tuscaloosa Birmingham it's going to stay more likely south of Birmingham if this thing holds together it's going to come up into parts of Shelby County and maybe over here into st. Clair or Talladega we'll just have to see again as we get later into the night the dynamics are going to be pulling away from the region so the upward motion will decrease and there should be a slow decrease in the instability values as well so at some point this thing will weaken most likely but for now it's broad rotation coming up into big County and I would say if you're north of Interstate 20 all these counties in through here Fayette Lamar Walker Kuhlman Blount Etowah - cab Marshall the odds of severe weather tonight are pretty low this is the big picture and yeah and look I understand it's nasty it is just pouring rain there's thunder there's lightning you might have some small hail but in terms of severe no we have no warnings we don't expect any warnings in through here the chance of any warning are low not zero but low the better instability values are down here south of interstate 20 and again that's the storm right there that prompted that warning for parts of Choctaw Sumter Marengo Greene Hale Perry and now Bibb counties and again the south of that we have a severe thunderstorm warning for that segment of the line that might produce strong straight-line winds that might exceed 50 or 55 miles per hour and again back in through here we have severe thunderstorm warnings for parts of Choctaw County but no tornado warnings the only tornado warning in the whole United States of America tonight is the one that's affecting parts of central Alabama this storm right through here so let's go back into this we'll do a single site look at this and again the nice thing about it now you know about what an hour ago the beam was 10,000 feet now the beam well I can tell you real quick the beam it's going to be much much lower looking at that particular storm the beam it's probably about 2,000 feet so we're getting a much better look at this this is Brent right here this is Centreville again this is your circulation right back in through here circulations in the back part of the store and the storm is moving this way so this is the leading edge if this were daylight you probably see a pretty nasty looking shelf cloud here shelf clouds have nothing to do with a wall cloud nothing to do with a tornado you're gonna have that it's gonna be back here in the south western flank and again that's gonna be coming right up in the general direction Centreville Brent again maybe crossing highway 82 somewhere between Brent and the Tuscaloosa County line this is the polygon extent right here the polygon does include West blocked in north of Centerville and Brent and Randolph kind of sits down here on the far southern edge of the polygon most likely this stays well to the north of Randolph and six mile this Highway 25 going back over toward Wilton and Montevallo right here so we'll just kind of see let's go back to the velocity display will bounce back between these various products and this is pretty broad like you get a brush and just kind of smear everything out you we saw that really tight couplet in through here earlier it's still rotating this thing is spinning like a top but it's not that violet looking circulation we had 15 minutes ago but remember we've had it go Titans right back up at some point it's gonna stay broad but we just don't know that and again the weather service will continue the warning for Bibb County the warning for bid will continue until 10:00 it is now nine twenty nine and it'll be gone before 10 o'clock it'll be out of the county by 10 o'clock but again for the next 30 minutes and I know it is so inconvenient especially for people watching us on their phone and we thank you for watching and you might be watching in a community shelter and those are great we are so thankful for our EMS the emergency managers that work on getting these community shelters they are a godsend because so many people don't have adequate shelter where they live maybe they live in a mobile home but having said that as great as they are you really don't want to sit there for four or five six hours that's just not working for you you know I mean you so hopefully we can get you out of there in a matter of 15 or 20 minutes but it's going to take a little while to get this thing out of the county so again it almost looks like one of these book and vortex type features we see in the radar classes we take that's coming through bib and this is similar to the signature that came through the Tennessee Valley earlier that / dropped tornadoes in counties like Lawrence and Morgan and Madison so we'll see if this little bookend vortex feature stays in place coming up into Shelby you've got to watch this and we'll do that very carefully so we're gonna obviously stay with this but again the good news this is the only tornado warning in the state right now the only one we've got a severe thunderstorm warning down to the south of parts Perry County and that's about it and again the tornado watch has been canceled four counties up here in Northwest Alabama in the Tennessee Valley Madison limestone Morgan Lawrence Winston Marion Franklin Kolbert Lauderdale Jackson your risk of severe weather it's done you're done for this event and just hopefully you're done for the year it looks like things will be quiet for the rest of this week and hopefully Christmas week as well we do note a severe thunderstorm warning down here for southern shock talk County from Butler south and really that's about it so we've got one two three severe thunderstorm warning polygons and the one tornado warning polygon and the Storm Prediction Center will have some interesting decisions to make because this watch is set to expire the question is do they extend that watch and they'll be having some decisions to make and they do a great job out in Norman got a lot of buddies out there and I can't say enough about my friends in at the Storm Prediction Center I Brian what you got for us where you at I think Brian's eating a taco right now yo man not I knew that would get in when I the greatest moments Brian I went and during the winter storms when you pull into the Taco Bell or the McDonald's or the Burger King that's the greatest live television ever but you can't do that and we got tornadoes around absolutely but the only thing for supper tonight was Cheetos and an orange drink oh that's not good Brian you can do better than that say I know I could absolutely but you know when you're thrown facing you have to eat what you can eat when you can eat it exactly no I'm in there with you kind of the same business here so I wanted to point out James that the air is definitely stabilized a great deal behind the storm the temperature I'm showing now which was in the lower 70s ahead of that storm is now in the lower 60s 61 to be specific right and I should mention I guide you going up highway 25 year ago you're in Moundville right now I'm spying approaching yeah I'm spying on you so again Brian's gonna come back to Birmingham and Luke back down and catch it that way again what we're trying to do is catch a storm here that's going 40 or 50 miles an hour in the middle of the night which is almost impossible to do but again you can see that this little vortex feature is coming right through Bibb County right now if you're in Centreville and Brent the weather conditions have deteriorated and it is a situation where we got to watch this thing I know the circulation is brought back let's stop this and let me show the actual velocity display on here again this is the reflectivity and it's really broad that's not really a classic tornado signature here so again we've got this broad circulation coming through Bibb County and we'll just see how it behaves I would say at this moment there's not a tornado there that certainly doesn't look like one we don't see debris being lofted there's no evidence of anything going on right now but broad rotation coming through Centerville and Brent pond Ville in fact that broad circulation is almost right at that old radar site way back in the old days and again you can see evidence on that volume scan it's a little tighter so this thing has had a history of becoming broad tightening up again we can't let down our guard so if you are in this polygon you respect the polygon you stay in a safe place until we give you an all-clear and then you can go on about your business this should be the last severe storm of the night for folks that are dealing with this for example if you're in Demopolis and Greensboro there's just a low-end chance you'll see another one I guess you might but the odds of another one are fairly small and you can get to bed and get ready for a day tomorrow at work or school so broad circulation coming right up into a downtown Brent for those that are not old enough to remember that tornado killed five people in Brent Sunday night May 27 1973 killed a man in the Brent Baptist Church his name was Andrew Mitchell ax I I went down there that night is a teenager I was ending my junior year in high school and we had no cell phones in 1973 my hobby was ham radio still as today we were it we were one of the first groups down there and I will never forget that that was a life-changing night for me and we stayed down there for three days but it just tore that place up it was such a horrible situation Greensboro took a direct hit that night it was really bad in Greensboro it came through Shelby County south of Birmingham and then lifted again on the eastern side of the state but clearly that's not this is nothing like that here this that that Brent tornado in 73 was an ef-4 this is nothing like that in fact again this is relatively broad but still and any minute that thing might drop again sometimes these things go through an occlusion process they redevelop and they come right back down so you have to stay sheltered as this storms comes on through Bibb County and it's got that it's got that really suspicious look let's go back to the reflectivity and again you can see you see that thing right there like comma shape you never like to see that and a lot of times you can have within that comma shape these or Nadeau's that drop out of that thing and that happened up in the Tennessee Valley earlier tonight that's where we had some loss of life up in northern parts of Lawrence County so that's not really a good signature and I don't like that considering the dynamics we have it play the volatility of the atmosphere tonight but that's going to keep on coming up into Shelby County so next in line places like montevallo and alabaster and Halina so just be aware that if you're in those Shelby County communities were calling out alabaster you've got to watch this thing because it's gonna move through Shelby County for the moment the velocity display it's relatively broad but again it could tighten up at any moment now but the good thing about it it's the only storm we have in the state in progress right now the only thunderstorm that has prompted a tornado warning if you've watched us over the years we bounced between one two three four five of these things going on down at the same time I want to go to the Skycam Network if we can take that full screen I want to show the Tuscaloosa Skycam I'm looking for the environment in Birmingham Birmingham 68 over 65 that dew point tells you a story it's a very balmy night when the dew point hits 65 on a December night that is a very ripe volatile atmosphere so that's our Tuscaloosa Skycam out of focus but again I'm looking for the numbers down below that's University Boulevard 68 over 66 let's go to Grandview Medical Center this is in northern Shelby County are really on the Jefferson Shelby County line and we're looking for the numbers and again the dew point is the key number and that one might not come let's try gallery at our if that one's not coming up because we'll get another citizen there we go 68 over 65 so let's go to Jasper now let's work our way back into this rain mass and see what the dew point looks like up in there I would imagine it might be a bit lower at this point Jasper's down to 60 and dropping and again once we get those dew points back in the 50s and the 40's that is a stable air mass and DeMar is going to be a radically different kind of day we stay in the 40s all day with a strong north wind it will be cloudy overcast during the morning so again this airmass will not be here much longer so let's go back to our double box situation hey James I do want to point out that we're getting word that this watch will be extended in time to the Georgia state line so we're still waiting on that to come out but just so folks aren't surprised when we do have a new watch issued okay yeah I think that makes good sense based on what's happened today and again clearly the circulation here is really broad now if that is a very broad signature but I just don't like the way it looks so stay sheltered The Weather Service is going to maintain the warning at this time and if they get a series of volume scans with this really broad circulation they will allow the warning to expire or cancel that thing early but again the Weather Service is in the process of extending their issuing a new tornado watch that we'll run over here to the Georgia state line so if you're in places like Ashland and line ville and Talladega and Heflin and Roanoke and Wedowee and Spring Garden and Piedmont and in those places you'll be under a tornado watch sure in a matter of minutes and this will run for several more hours that will carry us probably on past midnight tonight it looks like we have is that a severe thunderstorm warning oh here's a new one here this one just came in this is a severe thunderstorm warning in effect now for parts of a toga bib Chilton and Dallas counties this is not a tornado warning down here but a severe thunderstorm warning basically all at Chilton County northern a.target County in the northern tip of Dallas County and the old one with included parts of Perry County so this is the southern extent of that line that will be capable of producing strong straight-line winds so again if you're in places like thor's be Jemison Clanton verbena Fairview Maplesville Stanton Ryder Ville Jones you're in a severe thunderstorm warning where you might see strong straight-line winds Billingsley in a Target County winds might exceed 50 55 miles an hour we say this a lot really doesn't matter if it's a tornadic circulation or straight line wins you just need to know that it's coming and so you might want to be in a good safe place in your home even though it's not a tornado warning it's a severe thunderstorm warning down here let's go back to the radar when it kind of show the view from this thing and show you what the structure is yeah let's leave it right there I like that view so little vortex is up here in Bibb County and trailing that you've got a line of storms with really strong winds and that's come on through Marion so for Marion the danger is ended here but that's going to be sweeping through northern Dallas County again up around the community of Jones Billingsley Fairview Maplesville rider Ville Stanton Clanton Jemison thor's B Lomax verbena basically all of Chilton County is going to deal with this thing and again these are the approximate arrival times in relationship to the time we have right now so this might produce winds of 40 50 60 miles per hour that might be enough to knock down trees and power lines be aware of that and that will keep on moving on to the east crossing the kusa ultimately into Coosa County but this is just that little part we've got to watch up here in the top side of this thing let's animate this a little do a loop if we can and again I want to show you how we've got this little vortex loose mesoscale vortex coming through here and let's expand that a little bit so we can see the history of this thing and this came through close to Demopolis and close to Greensboro and yeah it's really developed that comma head configuration here over the last 15 minutes or so and often when you see that there might be a small tornado up and through here and the damaging winds down here below that and this convective mass will come over here and cross i-65 and then ultimately cross into the eastern side of the state so just be aware of that so let's go zoom back into Bibb County let's look at the velocity display and we'll take a look and see how the velocities look and it's getting chaotic a lot of times you can have these really small scale vortices within this like that and like this where it's going to be awfully hard even for some Oh goober that's been doing this for so long to figure out where they are in terms of a tornadic circulation the main message is this you stay sheltered if you are in a shelter now in Bibb County you stay sheltered I can't show you this well defined velocity couplet I can't show you a debris being lofted I don't have the hook echo and the debris ball like we often show you it gets really noisy sometimes in a situation like this but again you can't have these small tornadoes that can drop in a heartbeat without much notice so again if you're in Bibb County in this polygon you want to stay in a good safe place until this thing passes on through and if you're in Centreville Brent will give you an all-clear here in about ten minutes in about ten minutes or so so the tornado warning for Bibb County continues until 10:00 we have circulation near Brent and Centreville right now moving northeast at 40 and again if this continues the next County in line it's going to be Shelby County and if you're in montevallo if you are in Wilton if you are in Maylene or alabaster or calera or Halina just keep an eye on this and we'll see how it how it goes and again the nice thing this is the radar here so we're getting a nice shot right down into this down into that storm that is now in Bibb County and with each volume scan again you can see the structure looks a little different in here but it's clearly disorganized let's check in with Brian Peters Brian it looks like you're back to your tusks a looser now I am coming up on 20 59 on Alabama 69 and the rain is steady but not extremely heavy I have not seen any additional signs of any kind of you know flooding along the roadways or anything like that and have not seen any other additional signs of any minor damage at all so that's good news and a lot of places have all their power so it looks like the lights stay on that means that has not been any serious damage I hope that by the way we have a number of taco restaurants in Tuscaloosa offering you a free taco but you have no time for that right you got work to do so we have a new watch the graphic and in just a second you're gonna see the new counties pop on Brian the new tornado watch has just been issued it's going to be in effect until 10:00 Z which is 4 a.m. and Brian's sleep is for who alright sleep is for who yes there you go we don't sleep much in the weather business so again watch the eastern side here you're gonna see the counties fill in in just a second and what this is going to do this new watch will extend this over to the Georgia state line until 4:00 a.m. I'm not so sure we see that much severe weather after midnight we might begin the atmosphere is volatile but as we've talked about the upper dynamics will be pulling away with time and as that happens the intensity should gradually go downhill but you can see we got that one little bitty tornado warning polygon 4 bib but let's zoom back into that let's keep this map up and let's zoom in a little tighter here and looks like the Weather Service has tightened up the polygons so West blocked and you've been taken out so if you're in West block then we're gonna give you an all-clear from this tornado danger let's back it out a little bit let me show you West blocked in which is right there so this is West blocked in this is Brent let's zoom back in tighter now and again just want to show you who's involved in this everybody along Highway 25 back over to the Shelby County line is in this Highway 139 out here round Briarfield going south down toward Randolph but this is the part of the county where we're still concerned little town a six mile here which is between Montevallo and Brent this is Ashby and this is Oakland again Randolph is just right down the road so that's the part of MIT County that is still under a tornado warning and that's the reason we're here we've been here at this TV station for a long time 23 years or longer going on 24 and the policy has always been if there's a tornado warning for any County in our TV market we go on the air and we stay on the air and that's what we've always done we will always do and the minute we lose the tornado warnings we'll go back to regular programming and do frequent updates but not a continuous type thing so now let's go to the radar and we're gonna do is look at the velocity display and we're very close very close to giving Centreville and Brent the all-clear not quite not quite we're almost there and again it looks like you've got you know different vortices within this thing this is a complex little meso scale pattern that's formed here and these circulations that kind of reformed down to the South in this comma head and that's gonna be coming right up Highway 25 so again if you're in Wilton or Montevallo just watch and in about 10 to 15 minutes the Weather Service will have to make that decision do they extend the warning into Shelby County or do they let it go do they think it's broad part of the decision process is do we have any damage in Bibb County and Taylor is watching our sky watchers and all the social media channels and I'm doing the same thing and I've not seen any damage so far coming out of Bibb which is great we've had damage in Marengo and really I've not seen a lot of damage in hail but remember it's night these were sparsely populated areas and we often don't know about the damage until tomorrow morning the first light of day we'll see but I would imagine if we can get through without any significant damage in Bibb County The Weather Service might decide just let it go and use a severe thunderstorm warning what still is very significant you have to pay attention to those things but again you can see evidence here of you know what what might be another tornado trying to form here Centreville is right here brent is right here the Cahaba River is right there that's the Cahaba Brent Centerville right here up on the hill and we're kind of watching this spot right here with a higher core of reflectivity and that's moving north right up highway 25 in the general direction of six-mile and Wilton in Montevallo and we'll see here in a matter of minutes if The Weather Service decides to keep that warning intact the sad news tonight we have had two fatalities in the state we've had loss of life two people died in northern Lawrence County near the towns of Cortland and Town Creek this happened late this afternoon from a very similar type feature where there was very significant damage others were injured I don't know the full injury count the details will get that from news once we hit the newscast here hopefully at the top of the hour at 10 o'clock we're coming up on 12 minutes now before 10:00 if we if this tornado warning is not extended we'll hit the ten o'clock news on time tonight we'll just have to see but we'll get more details on that we have had no loss of life in the central part of the state we've had some tornado damage but no loss of life which is a good thing there's your new watch so we now have a tornado watch on the eastern side of the state until 4:00 a.m. tomorrow and that includes counties to the Georgia state line and basically all of central Alabama the two counties in our TV market not under a watch are Winston and Mary him let's keep this perspective let me show them wide view the wide radar view and understand I want you to know if you're north of Interstate 20 in North Alabama the weather is not good as pouring rain right in through here rain is coming down really good will pop the radar back on here and the storms are not severe though they're producing heavy amounts of rain thunder lightning gusty winds but they're simply not severe you've got to have winds of 58 miles per hour or greater or hail one inch in diameter or larger for a warning to be issued and while the weather is not good they are just underneath all those limits if there's all of the devices are telling me there's a new tornado watch which we already knew but thank you but again this is the feature right here that little vortex right there with the trailing band of storms where the air is more unstable down to the south of interstate 20 so let's zoom back in if we can tailor to our storm that is in bib and the behavior of this will pretty much determine if we hit the newscast at 10:00 o'clock and if the warning is extended into Shelby Shelby County is right here and this thing is racing along at a pretty good clip that's moving at 40 45 miles an hour and you can see the leading edge is coming up into Shelby County right now you got montevallo down here now you got Calera alabaster Maylene Halina and it's that southern part of Shelby County that will be affected by this initially and you could easily see some strong wind gusts maybe not severe wind gusts maybe 35 40 miles an hour on the leading edge of this and the question is do we have a tornado back here in the back part The Weather Service in Birmingham has been maintaining this tornado warned let's go to our velocity display and we'll see what that looks like and that tells us the story and again it's pretty broad this is not exactly what you'd call a tornado signature there's broad rotation here but no evidence of violent circulation or a tornado down at this point and again remember we're getting a good look at this thing the radar is very close now to this actual storm Centreville brent we're going to give you an all-clear if you are in Brent or Centerville you're good the danger is over from this storm in terms of producing a tornado understand you'll have thunder lightning and rain I'm not saying the weather is just going to clear up but in terms of the tornado danger the risk from this storm is over so Centreville and Brent and points down to the south and west like Pond Ville you're okay the warning continues in effect basically along this highway 25 corridor from up towards six mile and the Shelby County line Ashby is right here that's highway 139 Briarfield the ironworks park sits right here 139 goes down toward Maplesville but that broad rotation will be crossing into Shelby County pretty soon again that's not a tornado signature but we've been watching if you've been watching us for a long time you've seen this thing come and go come and go it gets tight it's dangerous broadens out nothing going on it tightens right back up we're in a broad phase right now so again this is not really a tornado signature here but we'll see let's check in with Brian Peters our man on the road Brian looks like you're maybe you can intercept this thing in Shelby County you came up the long way I did I thought about taking 25 when I was passed it on 69 but I goose there the storm really has been cycling that is really true and I hope maybe it'll finally cycle down if it can get away from some of this instability yeah you're right and again the key elements and there's a lot more to it than that but the key elements in tornado formation buoyancy the ability of air parcels to rise freely in stability and bearing of the wind with altitude and both of those should be decreasing with time and hopefully the tornado just cancelled well before 4 a.m. but again the new watch until 4 a.m. for Central and East Alabama in advance of this and the good news this is it this is the only really tornado warning we have in the whole country right now it's that one small part of Bibb County northeast of Centerville and Brent well for a broad circulation that's around 6 mile on highway 25 we've had some reports of trees down north of Highway 25 in Hale County but no injuries this back when the storm was really looking good northeast of Greensboro some trees down no injuries and again we're gonna be speaking with an EMA representative in Bibb County in fact we had all the EMA folks together last Friday for a big conference in Clanton with meteorologists from the Weather Service the media and EMS we call it the integrated warning team and a lot of our friends we saw down there on Friday and we'll get an update but again this thing is pretty broad and I say there is a reasonable chance we hit the news at 10:00 so for everybody in the building our producers the anchors reporters everybody involved net newscast be ready to go at 10:00 because if we do not have an extension of this morning that's it in terms of tornado warnings and we should mention too there is a severe thunderstorm warning to the south let's go to the reflectivity and broaden this thing out want to show parts of Chilton County and down into Targa you see this segment right here this could produce strong straight-line winds Clanton is right here you've got verbena which is right down here on us 31 Thor's be in Jemison are right up here this line of storms is coming through Chilton County that might produce strong winds strong straight-line winds that might exceed 40 45 50 miles an hour and that's the reason there is a severe thunderstorm warning in effect for Chilton Northern Otago in northern Dallas again this is us 82 right here this is Billingsley and again we'll watch that Boeing segment down to the south but possibilities of strong straight-line winds but again the reason we're here it's this little feature right up in here in the far north eastern part of Bibb County that has shown signs of producing a tornado quite frankly the reflectivity and the velocity don't look as impressive now as they did 15 20 minutes ago it's very broad but again there's evidence that we've got circulation right here that's approaching the Shelby County line so in a matter of three or four minutes we'll find out if The Weather Service chooses to extend this and again I think a lot of this is going to be related do we have any damage in Bibb County and to my knowledge we have not had any watching all the social media channels the tweeter the gram everything I've not seen any damage down there so far we did have a really good TDS at tornado debris signature in far in north western Perry counties the storm came up in here and Taylor's showing evidence of what might be a TDS up in here what might be moments ago this is a couple scans moments ago and it just goes away like that you know these things I'm afraid we're getting into a point now where I do want to pass along some information for our friends in Shelby County Halina Police Department has passed along that the Halina High School will be open for sheltering if necessary so if anybody in Shelby County decides they need to take shelter that is an option for you okay thank you our tailor it is now 956 and again we are in the process of watching a lot of data here and we'll find out here in just a matter of minutes if the weather service will be extending this it's pretty it's pretty tough call you know if let me just say this we don't issue warnings here we don't want to be in that business the National Weather Service issues watches and warnings if every TV station issue their own warnings it would be absolute chaos we need a simple unified message in the weather Enterprise and that's what the weather service does for us and we certainly support everything they do and it's hard you know making that decision do you press the button and issue a warning do you keep your finger off the button and not you don't want to pull a false alarm but you don't want to miss a tornado you don't want to reduce your probability of detection it's it's a hard thing to do down there there is a weather testbed where a lot of times broadcasters can sit in that position and have to make those decisions it's like a Mission Control for one of the NASA launches but it's pretty tough so we'll see in a minute here but again now you got Montevallo here Wilton here meline alabaster Calera Shelby County Airport right here that's where the weather service is located if you've ever been driving interstate 65 north or south below alabaster you've seen that big golf ball looking thing up on a tower on the east side of the interstate that's the radar inside that large dome there's a big parabolic antenna that spins constantly emitting little beams of electromagnetic electromagnetic energy if there is rain or a target part of the energy bounces back in a split second and we make maps where the bounces are coming from and this is what we're showing you here so the radar is right by the Shelby County Airport the weather services at the Shelby County Airport as well but again this is the spot we're watching of course and you can see there's evidence of circulation seems to be a little tighter little tighter now than it was five minutes ago that's about to come up in to us Shelby so just hang tight if you're watching us we're not giving any call to action there is no polygon in Shelby County right now there might be in 30 seconds but for now there is not and we are about one minute away from the warning expiring here at 10:00 so what we're gonna do we're gonna start our 10 o'clock news and we're gonna hold it here for 60 seconds and if we hit at ten o'clock we're gonna go because a lot of things have happened today with the weather we've had loss of life in the state and we've got a lot of information to share with you and our news department is very gracious and they're very patient to wait on us we don't relinquish the control to them until we have the dangerous weather out of here but again if the Weather Service is convinced that there's no tornado and again that's pretty broad although again there's still circulation here coming up highway 25 we'll see so we'll hold it here for just one more second and then at that point we will hit Chris sign and the newscast here at 10:00 on this Monday night December 16th and every time you think of December 16th if you're the weather business you think back to what happened on this date 19 years ago where we had a horrible tornado in Tuscaloosa Saturday December 16th 2011 people died many of them in the Bear Creek trailer park south of Tuscaloosa so again you can see at this point we have lost our tornado warning we now have just a severe thunderstorm warning in effect for Chilton ok there's a new tornado warning new tornado warning just popped up so we are gonna stay here this is a new tornado warning for parts of Bibb Chilton and Shelby counties in effect until 10:45 so a new tornado warning in effect for parts of Bibb Shelby Chilton counties until 10:45 tonight so let me do a couple of quick things here so I can get this on social media one thing let me just say this - I know a lot of people use dual screens you're sitting there on your phone watching us on television a lot of people don't watch and it's all of our energy goes into this presentation we do we best we can with social media but understand we prefer people to watch us when things start the shake-and-bake here because we can it's a lot easier to tell the story this way so this is where we are this this is the Shelby County part of this and if we can that's going a little tighter won't talk about Shelby County who's in who's out so alabaster you are not in this warning does not include alabaster it does include Calera Montevallo Wilton Columbiana the town of Shelby in Wilsonville it does not include Halina it does not include Pelham it does not include Chelsea it does not include places like Highland Lakes or Inverness the northern part of Shelby County so the warning is for the southern part of Shelby County the areas here in red so if you are in Columbiana if you are in calera if you're in Montevallo if you are in the town of Shelby if you live on leigh lake on the shelby county side if you are in vil you need to go to a safe place now now let's go down into Chilton County let me show you who's in in Chilton County the warning includes Jemison and Thoris B it does not include Clanton so Clanton is not in the tornado warning you're under a severe thunderstorm warning not a tornado warning but obviously nobody should be driving along Interstate 65 between Clanton and calera for about the next 30 minutes until this thing passes on by and in Bibb County it's the far far far eastern side of the county that region out around Ashby and and six-mile but the core for Shelby County remember it's going to be the southern end of the county the problem is a lot of these older legacy systems still sound countywide you might hear something but understand the warning for Shelby County let's go show Shelby again not Taylor we're gonna move this down just a bit south of a line from near Montevallo over to Wilsonville so again alabaster nope you're not in the polygon Halina nope Pelham no Hoover in Shelby County no Inverness nope Indian Springs nope Chelsea no it's down here for the southern part of the county Montevallo back over toward calera you got Columbiana you got wilson bill you got the town of Shelby which is about right here and the western shore of Lake and then down into Chilton County this includes Jameson and Thor's be and it does not include Clanton it does not include Clinton and Chris I can't see that I'm sorry it says oh station ID WB ma Birmingham ten o'clock we will get to our newscast as soon as we can the reason we're here it's for this tornado warning so let's go back to the radar and let's see if we can point out this and again this is gonna be noisy as the Dickens it is going to be not like the classic spring days with the hook echoes and the debris balls and these velocity couplets we've got little vortex coming through Bibb and Shelby counties with a trailing band of storms down in through here so let's stop this and let's take a look at the velocity and see if we can find any spots that are particularly dangerous so this is our velocity display and again we've got the radar itself that's sitting right here and you can see right in through here there's evidence of what could be a tornado on highway 139 this near Briarfield the ironworks bark that's an amazing facility if you've never been there you want to relive some history but that's going to be coming right up in the direction of Wilton and Montevallo and then coming right down highway 25 over here toward calera Montevallo here calera here possible circulation right here so that's why this is for the far southern part of Shelby the northern part of Chilton Jemison is right here and Thoris B is just right down the road down here so again you got a possible tornado the southern part of Shelby County not the northern part but the southern part we are getting word from the National Weather Service Birmingham that we've got this TDS here and they are saying there is a tornado on the ground just north of Ashby ok and so what what and when you see that lowered CC right here that's a sign the radar is telling us this is not a hydrometeor this is not hail this is not rain this is not a snowflake this is something different and the Weather Service believes that that is a TDS and again this is right below highway 25 right down highway 139 and again that's awfully close to the town of Wilton which is right here and this is basically where Bibb and Shelby and Chilton counties all come together so the immediate call to action is for those folks in Montevallo and Wilton up here to be in a safe place that includes I don't know if the students are still there at the University of Montevallo I think everybody's graduated and everybody's in break right now for Christmas but if you are in montevallo or Wilton you need to be in a safe place as that TDS continues to show right here and again that's pretty impressive it looks like the core of this thing might be passing a bit south of Wilton maybe south of Montevallo but still you're awfully close to this the town of Montevallo sits right here this is Wilton and then you got the town of clear which is over here this might be scooting across for northern Chilton County but it's awfully close to the Chilton Shelby County line some people were the montevallo mailing address live across the line in Chilton County but again this is the tential for debris that is being lofted in the process of crossing out of Bibb moving into extreme northern Chilton in extreme southern Shelby County so again the Weather Service believes that this is a dangerous situation which it is and everybody in the path of this needs to respect the polygon and if you're in you've got to do something and again the call to action and people say why do you keep saying the same thing over and over well people come and go people watch for a while they turn it off for a while they come back a lot of people haven't heard this but this the key message is here if you are in the polygon you cannot be in a car you can you cannot be in a mobile home you can't you have to be in a site built structure in a small room hall closet bathroom lowest floor near the center no windows and have a helmet on a bicycle helmet a batting helmet most people that die from tornadoes in this state die from blunt force trauma wounds to the skull region that will greatly mitigate that and enhance your chance of surviving this if you take a hit so that's the call to action and again interstate 65 is a big corridor here in this state and nobody should be driving along interstate 65 at this point which is over here until this thing passes so again we're watching debris that is being lofted this is Alabama highway 1:55 coming south out of Montevallo 155 runs down into Chilton County down here toward Union Grove but if you're near Highway 155 in Chilton or Shelby or in montevallo and more than likely this is going to pass a bit south of Montevallo a good chance it will but you're awfully close you can't take any chances and you want to stay in a safe place let's go to our velocity couplet this is the correlation coefficient will go to velocity and again this is it's we're starting to see evidence right in through here alright that's darn close to Montevallo and that's awfully close so again Montevallo is here that's Alabama highway 1:55 going down into Chilton that's highway 25 going back down toward Wilton and that's going to keep on moving out in the general direction of calera and so what's what's interesting here The Weather Service is down here in the path of this thing and there's a distinct possibility if they have to go into their tornado plan they could have to give control to the National Weather Service in Atlanta they believed that the tornados circulation most likely will stay a little south of their facility at the Shelby County Airport but they've notified the weather service in Atlanta in case they are needed for backup and that's the way it works they've always got a backup in case The Weather Service has to evacuate the office an adjacent office will pick up the responsibility for them but again over here this is interstate 65 and clear it is right here the Shelby County Airport is right here that's highway 119 coming south out of alabaster that's your tornadic circulation so this will not affect alabaster at all you're not the polygon Calera you are in the polygon but if you're up in alabaster Halina Pelham Hoover this will not affect you so again the concern it's going to be right in through here The Weather Service office is here this most likely comes in through here south of the Shelby County Airport and again awfully close to the city of clearest so if you are in Montevallo or anywhere back over here toward calera you want to be in a safe place and if that continues on that track it could affect places like Columbiana and Wilsonville those places are in the polygon and that's where we have to watch that this is the southern part of Shelby County not the northern part but the southern part this has been a long long lasting supercell thunderstorm but again we've noticed over the past 30 minutes 60 minutes it's developed this vortex feature it looks like a comma book and vortex we had one coming through the Tennessee Valley and let me just say this with that book and vortex up in the Tennessee Valley earlier today that's the one that dropped a tornado in northern Lawrence County responsible for the deaths of two people so this is a serious situation and we have to treat it with all seriousness here but again this is your possible circulation right in through here it's along Highway 25 and again that's in the process of moving from montevallo back over toward Calera coming right down Alabama Highway 25 so again the the important message here it's for those people that are in calera and if you have a clear a mailing address safe place you know the deal small room lowest floor near the center no windows tell them it's on for everybody and again we're seeing evidence right here of a TDS a tornado debris signature and this is right on the Chilton Shelby County line I mean it is just straddling that line right here and that's going to keep on moving it's it's moving more East than North East it seems like this has been turning a little to the right of the mean flow but still that's going to put it awfully close to the town of calera here shortly and remember the way the radar works you get a volume scan it takes the radar a minute or two for that volume scan to happen so it could be that that TDS is actually closer to downtown Calera which is right here so again nobody should be along Interstate 65 nobody between alabaster and Clanton for about the next 15 minutes because a tornadic circulation most likely will be crossing the interstate near the town of Calera right around that Alabama highway 25 exit this thing wants to stay right on highway 25 it's been basically in that zone for a while now it just it's hugging highway 25 so tornado warning in effect now for the southern part of Shelby County and again this includes montevallo calera Wilsonville Columbiana it does not include the northern part of Shelby County places like alabaster Kalina Pelham Chelsea Inverness Greystone you this is not close to you you are not in the polygon you don't need to do anything you're good the concern it's down here in this southern end and again Calera is right here and you can see evidence of the circulation right here let's pop back on that correlation coefficient product this is a dual polarization product and again you can see evidence of a a lowering of the CC right in through here and that would that would put it about where that spot is and again this is a little noisy it's not a classic TDS but again if there is one it's going to be right about here which correlates with that with that velocity signature that we saw so but the one thing you know that's interesting I've yet to see any damage so far although just get reports of trees down in the area of highway 155 and 200 in the montevallo area so there we go first reports of damaged trees down and now the Shelby County Sheriff's Office is confirming a tornado on the ground southeast of montevallo that's right here along Highway 25 Montevallo is here southeast and that's it so again the Shelby County Sheriff confirming a tornado on the ground southeast of Montevallo and Cora in correlation with that we have reports of trees down around Highway 155 just south of Montevallo so again this is a you know pretty serious situation for those that are in Calera and maybe ultimately Columbiana so again if you are in the polygon you obviously need to be respecting that and be in a safe place and we are right at the radar I mean you know just not that recently we were looking at this thing when the beam was 10,000 feet now the beam is looking right at it that's the radar and again this is going to be the broad area where this possible tornado that's going to be crossing highway 31 u.s. 31 and interstate 65 in a matter of minutes so nobody should be on either one of those major highways us 31 Interstate 65 stopped at a gas station you know get you a burrito or something just stop go into a small room a bathroom and in these places and typically all businesses are good about that on Interstate exits they allow you in and a place to shelter yourself because you can't be in a car and again this will be crossing over us 31 Interstate 65 soon and then moving in the general direction of Columbiana and of course if this continues it might affect parts of Talladega County maybe part of st. Clair County far southern st. Clair and again with the the analog to this is the May 27 1973 tornado let me see Brian Peters is with us Brian Nagy we will check on you your thoughts on what's going on so far with all this this is a very interesting case here as the radar indications aren't what you would typically think of or sell at least at this moment with the curvature we've seen in the reflectivity and all also we'd like to point out that the National Weather Service when they built the Shelby County Airport facility for the National Weather Service office there that they built a safe room in the middle of the structure that is poured concrete steel reinforced with a door that can withstand small arms fire so they have a safe place to go but as you pointed out they would have to turn the warning issuance over to Atlanta okay and again Brian where are you exactly located right now just out of curiosity what's the environmental conditions like I'm well I'm on 20:59 coming up not too far from the 459 interchange okay so again Brian we will just kind of see how this thing goes what's the temperature you got you still in the 70s there is 60s what you got I'm uh I've actually come up a couple of degrees now 63 degrees despite the fact that I'm getting a lot of rain it got down all the way to 60 but now it's come up a couple of degrees but I'm pretty sure the dew points are probably a lot lower okay awesome and again this threat will be winding down from west to east with time but again right now the call to action Calera back over to Montevallo if you are in any of these areas we've called out you need to be in a safe place the warning is for the southern part of Shelby County we can give an all-clear now to montevallo if you're in Montevallo this isn't all clear not from the weather it's going to be wet with thunder and lightning and heavy rain but in terms of the tornado threat the risk from this storm has ended for Montevallo it continues for calera and points on to the east and again Shelby Springs is right here along Highway 25 highway 25 goes back over to Columbiana which is right back over here that's Alabama highway 70 that runs to Columbiana from US Highway 31 a lot of people if you're very densely populated part of the Birmingham Metro so calera shell Springs Columbiana Wilsonville we want you to be in a safe place the circulation probably crossing us 31 and interstate 65 about right now and again the Weather Service is reporting that we've have reports of trees down in Montevallo right south of Montevallo down Highway 155 and again at 1012 this was five minutes ago the Shelby County Sheriff's Office confirmed a tornado on the ground southeast of Montevallo about the time where that tree damage occurred beyond that we don't have any specifics on that but we clearly noted a debris signature on radar at about that time and now we're so close to the radar site it's making it a little bit complicated and you know Taylor we might flip this thing to mxx if we can and just take a quick look at it from that perspective we'll be a little higher on the beam but sometimes when you get a storm like this right at the radar site that could be fairly challenging so we're going to take off the 80 radar the Shelby County Airport radar and flip on mxx we can do that and if we can't that's okay but sometimes you get multiple radars to look at that a new severe thunderstorm warning is coming for kusik County because of the bow echos south of that book and vortex so the line of storms coming out of Chilton about to come into Coosa County with the possibility of strong straight-line winds and if you can't Taylor don't worry about that that's okay well we'll look at it on the radar scope over here but again it's pretty noisy now coming out of here but still based on the reports we have had understand that there's a distinct possibility that there could be a tornado in the southern part of Shelby County just below the Shelby County Airport and this has been a very long-lasting storm I mean this thing has been around for a long time it originated back in Mississippi and we have watched it through Mississippi West Alabama now central Alabama and we've had a lot of damage with this storm in parts of Mississippi earlier today and tonight on the western side of the state and again reports of some damage in parts of Shelby County mostly tree and powerline damage so I am glancing at some of the products here and again it looks like that rotation is now almost a little east of the city of Calera so the greatest chance of rotation is now east of Calera moving in the general direction of lei lake and Columbiana and again this i would imagine this gonna stay probably south of Wilsonville but still you're in the polygon if you're in Wilsonville Columbiana you're in the polygon so let's go to the watch warning map want to show quickly the watches and the warnings we have here the one tornado warning it's for southern Shelby and northern Chilton and that's it that's the only tornado warning in the entire state there's a tornado watch until 4:00 a.m. for the eastern side of the state let me point out to the counties that have been cleared Tuscaloosa hail green Sumter Pickens fayette lamar marion winston the severe weather risk has ended there so if you're in those counties you can go to bed get your nap don't worry about the weather so once again these counties are clear from the tornado watch Sumpter green hail Tuscaloosa Pickens Fayette Lamarr Walker Winston and all the counties up in the Tennessee Valley a severe thunderstorm warning for Chilton is now being extended over into kusa and again the 1 tornado warning is for southern Shelby northern Chilton this does not include northern Shelby southern Shelby northern Chilton let's put the radar back on here and again we've had this little vortex feature come through let's animate this let's do the loop on this if we can and again you're gonna see this feature come through Bibb County and now coming through Shelby County and we've had reports of some trees down with this and this is moving very rapidly the one thing about it it's not going to last that long we'll be able to give you an all-clear in Shelby County relatively soon and down below that little vortex feature we have a line of severe storms that can't produce strong straight-line winds there's your new severe thunderstorm warning this includes the city of Rockford that's us 231 this line of severe storms crossing the kusa right now Lake Mitchell then it comes over into Coosa County that'll be crossing highway 231 soon Lea guff kheh and Rockford and then ultimately affecting Lake Martin Alexander city with a chance of strong straight-line winds may be damaging straight-line winds but in terms of the tornado threat it's this little feature right here that's coming through the southern part of Shelby County for Birmingham in Jefferson County odds of severe weather are low it's raining we've got thunder and lightning if you're in Jefferson but it's just pretty much harmless the same thing up here in parts of Etowah Blount st. Clair Marshall it's just noisy junk convection appear nothing going on it's severe the issue it's south of Interstate 20 from Shelby County on South with this little vortex feature right here so let's take off the reflectivity let's put on the velocity display and we'll take a look and see if we can find the circulation and I would say that it's getting fairly broad again I'm watching multiple radars and it's hard to find that signature but if you've been watching us it comes and it goes one minute it's there the next minute it's Broad's so again this has been very cyclical so even though at the moment we don't see strong evidence of a tight circulation it still could be there or it could come back at any time so Highway 25 comes out of Calera or u.s. Alabama Highway 70 right here that's Highway 25 right down here over to Columbiana so nobody should be along Highway 70 or Highway 25 between the interstate interstate 65 in Columbiana from there Highway 25 goes over to Wilsonville that's Alabama highway 145 that goes down to the town of Shelby and ultimately down into Chilton County but this circulation potential is going to be right in the zone here and that's the reason the polygon is correlating with that and again we stress this does not include Chelsey it does not include Inverness alabaster Pelham Halina Indian Springs all of these places are not in this morning this is the southern part of Shelby County and again that circulation will keep on coming out toward highway 145 maybe close to Wilsonville if it hangs in there then it crosses the Kusa and we'll see if the warning needs to be extended over into parts of Talladega County remains to be seen and as we've talked about with time the upper dynamics you're lifting away the air becomes a bit more stable and sooner or later this thing will gradually fade away the tragic news in case you've not heard we have had ports of two fatalities tonight up in North Lawrence County one report from Bibb County we've got reports of damage to a dental facility on Highway 139 which would be south west of Wilton that's fairly close to the bibs Shelby Chilton County intersection where the three counties to come together and again that would be not too far from Wilton and montevallo and Ashby so again that's some damage to a dental facility on how you at Alabama Highway 139 happened earlier tonight we're also getting some reports from Shelley Shelby County EMA that there are there is some damage on Highway 25 and the crews are on their way out there right now to get a better idea of what exactly that damage looks like but we've got just that new reporting from some damage as the storm moved through the Montevallo area on highway 25 yeah and I'm seeing that from my Brian white in our newsroom again he says no injuries but some damage south of Montevallo on highway 25 that will be down toward Wilton and Ashby the same places we've we've talked about in all of these communities were under tornado warnings and again it's our hope that people heard the warnings and were able to respond to them and doing this stuff at night it's hard you've been watching poor Brian driving around for three hours down here and we had Brian the great spot down in Demopoulos to catch that storm as it came through there but we just couldn't see the wall cloud of the tornado I think there's no doubt there was a tornado in the in north Marengo County especially west and north of Demopoulos but it's tough out there Brian you've been a long night but he's still out there okay you're doing all right I was right we can't talk to Brian right now I think there Brian I use that you're still there yes I am I momentarily okay so I you're out assume you're back in the Birmingham metro now yes I'm on for 59 coming up on exit six mostly in moderate rain yeah it just it seems like the Birmingham the city of Birmingham is going to do fine here Jefferson County this is not a Jefferson County problem this is a south big problem and for a lot of you watching it's just been a rainy night and we apologize I know flood problem we're trying to watch them ABC programming but whenever the weather gets dangerous we have to be here so Brian thank you for your service tonight and again we're why the reason we are here we have a thunderstorm that has produced some damage possible tornado damage in parts of Bibb and Shelby counties some of the damage was near in south of Montevallo and that rotation is in the process of moving northeast and we have a live picture Chris that's still there let's can we take that on rim 10 remember rin-ten-ten I'm the only guy old enough to remember rin-ten-ten rim 10 I remember yeah Brian um you and me buddy so this is a alabaster and understand there is no tornado danger in alabaster none we're just showing you that for information purposes this is i-65 and us 31 at the big shopping center the movie theaters there in alabaster and it's just rainy there's no danger there alabaster not in the polygons so that's the ideal there let's go back to the graphics and again we are now at 10:27 we have a rather challenging situation tonight where the storm has been cyclic we have had from time to time strong evidence of a tornado occasionally multiple small-scale circulations within this storm coming on through parts of Shelby County right now and again quite frankly looking at this I don't see any evidence of a tornado I just don't I mean and it might be back in five minutes that's the way it's been tonight the circulation broadens out Titans back up broadens out it's been very sickly but with time is the dynamics pull away and we get a more stable air mass at some point we're gonna lose this thing for good and I don't know about you but I'm about ready to get rid of this thing we've been talking about this for a long time tonight but still you've got to respect the polygon that's what you do if you're in a polygon you stay in a safe place and I know I know it's inconvenient you've got kids in the bathtub there were helmut they're cranky nobody's happy but there's been way too much loss of life on my watch over the last 41 years and that inconvenience will easily save your life and trust me it's worth it there are a lot of families they wish they wish they could go back in time and have their relative that passed away in a tornado situation do the things that we're asking you to do so please understand this is serious we would not do that otherwise so a tornado warning continues in effect for the southern part of Shelby County this includes Columbiana which is here Wilsonville which is here that's highway 25 I mean this sucker has been hanging right on highway 25 for a long time tonight and if it makes it over to 280 we'll see it would be near harper's ville but that remains to be seen if it makes it that far east and quite frankly there's really nothing to show you right now I have no tornados circulation at all so let's put the reflectivity back on here the real concern it's not tornado in this region now I'd say it's going to be the chance of strong winds south of there let's take a look at the extended line here yeah this stuff right here that's nasty looking this is a line of severe storms crossing Lake Mitchell moving into Coosa County from Chilton County this stuff is weakened up here greatly but this storm is capable of producing straight-line winds of 40 50 maybe 60 miles per hour that's enough to knock down trees and power lines and that will be crossing the u.s. 231 corridor here in Coosa County in about 15 minutes so we have severe thunderstorm warnings in effect now for Eastern southeastern Chilton County this thing coming through verbena Lake Mitchell approaching Sylacauga but within this segment right in through here we could see some strong winds and that will ultimately be affecting Lake Martin which is right here so if you're on the lake watching us tonight you could see some fairly rough weather in about 3045 minutes yes ma'am I'm getting some good news in from the National Weather Service they are cancelling the tornado warning for Shelby because just as we've been talking about it has it looks like it's a little bit more disorganized I'm going to keep monitoring there's nothing there so we're gonna start a newscast here in about one minute so again The Weather Service has canceled the tornado warned you can now get out of that bathtub you can get out of the bathroom you can take your helmet off you can go take a nap so you can celebrate that but remember we still have a severe thunderstorm warning in effect for parts of kusa southeastern Chilton northern a target counties but all tornado warnings have been canceled as of 10:30 1:00 so at this point that wraps up our long-form weather coverage we're gonna start ABC 3340 news now and James thank you for that and we start with the weather authority alert happening right now as we take a live look from one of our many teams out in the field many of the live feeds coming in right now as we are spread out from state line to state line covering this for you we have meteorologist Brian Peters he has been on the roads we have another live look right here coming out of Shelby County our teams spread out right there as you look live that is from Shelby County where we have seen a lot of Lightning off in the distance and we also have breaking news coming out of North Alabama right now two people are dead after storms moved through Lawrence County this is gonna be halfway between Huntsville and Florence and Muscle Shoals Lawrence County officials as you look at the video coming in right now from some of the feeds also confirming among the two dead we also have five people injured one person still missing at this hour we do not have an update on the severity of the injuries involved others as this reported tornado moved through North Alabama I want to thank you for joining us I'm Christopher sign is we have live team coverage across our entire area of course we are going to start with James Spann but first I wanted to give you a look this is from Tuscaloosa right now not a whole lot happening in that area just the wet roads but let's check in with James right now on the current conditions if you're just now joining us James right so we have a tornado watch in effect now for parts of East Alabama until 4:00 a.m. the risk has ended for the western and northern part of the state notice the counties that have cleared these counties no longer have a risk of severe storms Tuscaloosa green hail Sumpter Pickens Fayette Lamarr Walker and or I'm sorry not Walker Winston and Marion counties did the East that's a tornado watch until 4:00 a.m. no tornado warnings right now we have severe thunderstorm warnings in effect for a pretty good chunk of Kusa parts of Chilton Northern Otago counties and that's it will pop the radar back on here we have a band of strong storms passing through parts of central Alabama right here those storms could produce strong straight-line winds coming into Coosa County for the northern half of the state just a large mass of rain nothing severe odds of severe weather north of Interstate 20 are very small tonight not zero but very small the better chance of severe storms south of Interstate 20 east of i65 in this region right here but with time the air becomes more stable and the storm should slowly weaken after midnight tonight tomorrow a different kind of day cold and windy I've got the seven-day forecast and much more coming up so stay with us all right James we're going to continue our live coverage we have you covered from West Alabama Brian Peters has been up and down West Alabama South Alabama we're gonna check in with Brian Peters momentarily here that is a live look from his vantage point and from that area he's now in the Shelby County area but from Brian Peters standpoint I want to talk about the road conditions in Tuscaloosa where they are very wet also in Tuscaloosa also the Hale County roads we are covering much of West Alabama right now and I believe we also have Andrew Donnelly who is traveling with Patrick Thomas right now they have been chasing this storm up and down the western portion of our state they've been in Demopoulos I know that they've also been in Greene County as well Andrew can you hear me and what is your location and what are you seeing okay we have lost a Andrew as well so let's continue on and talk about what's happening right now with the largest storm shelter that has opened in West Alabama opened this afternoon that is the Macdonald Hughes community safe room that opened in Tuscaloosa the space can hold 1,700 people incapable of withstanding an ef5 tornado Rosa Wells has lived in that area of Tuscaloosa for somewhat of a half a century she knows and remembers just how bad the weather can be we spoke with her earlier God took care of us I mean that's the only thing I can't say God took care of us I wasn't scared anything because I yo we're old peoples had a saying you can't run and you can't hide and I believe that but he do give us senses you know things to do that storm shelter can also double as a spot for community recreation and other programs now as we mentioned we have crews spread throughout we're just having some connectivity issues with those crews but we always turn when we're covering severe weather to chief meteorologist James Spann about the current situation James yeah and it seems as though we might have some significant damage in the far north eastern part of Bibb County John Talbots one of our sky watchers and John also monitors scanner traffic and the Bibb County s Otis patcher says they need more deputies to respond to Briarfield estates for pretty bad damage and that's the way they describe that also trees blocking the roadway beyond that we don't know much more but again some of that damage occurred in this region right in through here the far northern part of Bibb County not too far from Montevallo we've had trees reported down with that same area so Briarfield south of Montevallo around highway 25 highway 139 apparently has been a good bit of damage there have heard of no injuries so far from that but that was the same storm that came through but there's a clear weakening trend and that's the good news and again you see this little book and vortex right here on the top part of this thing that bill comma shape that came through this region again you'll see it come right through here came through parts of Bibb County in Shelby County and again a lot of the damage is concentrated right in through here really we're bid Chilton Shelby counties all come together we've got crews on the way down here and as soon as we get live shot from them we'll pop that up and pass along the additional information but the concern right now it's this trailing band of storms coming into Coosa County so we have a line of storms approaching Rockford and we owe guff qey and those storms are capable of producing strong straight-line winds that could easily exceed 50 60 miles an hour that could be enough to down trees and powerlines so I would not want to be driving along Alabama 22 between Lake Mitchell and Rockford or us 31 anywhere in Coosa County I would wait until the storms pass not tornadic type winds but still strong straight-line winds that might knock down trees and powerlines and again that line will ultimately be affecting places like Kelton Alexander City Lake Martin and de Ville and that is the one problem spot we have let's go back to the watch warning situation again you can see that's the only warning in the whole deep south right now is a severe thunderstorm warning in effect for parts of kusa much of kusa in a small sliver of south eastern Chilton County and that's it there are no active tornado warnings in the state we have a tornado watch in effect until 4:00 a.m. and I think that's going to be canceled well before 4:00 a.m. for this eastern side of the state where we could see a few severe storms I would say north of Interstate 20 odds of severe weather are low let's pop the regional radar back on here and it's raining in a lot of places north of Interstate 20 just soaking rains are falling in through here but again odds of any severe weather are very low the air is stable it's just a big massive rain this is where the air is most unstable south of Interstate 20 east of Interstate 65 north of Interstate 85 that spot there in Alabama east central Alabama where there could be some pretty rough weather tonight and again the storms that are seemingly above severe limits are the ones coming through Coosa County affecting places like Rockford and that's where there's a severe thunderstorm warning currently in effect other than that we have no warnings in the state and we don't expect any warnings let's go to our convective outlook from the Storm Prediction Center real quick and again for really all practical purposes that the weather has ended back here in the northern and western part of the state and the next time they update this this will be long gone let's go to our seven-day we not had a chance to talk about what's going to happen over the next seven days things will be different tomorrow instead of a mild day like today with highs in the 70s we drop into the 40's tomorrow morning now early in the day you might wake up at 6 o'clock and it's 55 or 60 but will fall in the 40s and we stay in the 40s all day storms ending there early in the morning for most of you pre-dawn hours upper 20s are likely Wednesday and Thursday morning the sky will be sunny on Wednesday and Thursday 49 on Wednesday 53 on Thursday Friday should be dry the high 50 for the latest data suggesting a wave could come out of the Gulf as the weekend begins so we brought in the chance of rain on Saturday don't think it rains all day but some rain is likely the high 55 rain ending early Sunday the high 60 Monday starting Christmas week the high 64 and the long range guidance suggests we could be in the 60s all week next week for Christmas week so if you're dreaming of a white Christmas head for the Rockies let's go back to the radar we'll take a look at things we'll pitch back to Chris here in just a second I just wanted to show you one more time we have that one line of storms passing through parts of central Alabama specifically parts of Coosa County right here otherwise no severe weather warnings let's go back to Chris at the news desk all right James and of course the full resources of ABC 3340 will be here throughout the night we know you have a choice when it comes to your news sports and severe weather we thank you for choosing ABC 3340 your next newscast 4:30 a.m. on Good Morning Alabama [Music]

Channel: ABC 33/40 Weather

Views: 49,399

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

Id: McmS8AC-Id8

Length: 150min 8sec (9008 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 17 2019