January 25-26, 2021 Live Tornado Coverage - ABC 33/40

uh coming in here and actually we just have a tornado warning in effect for parts of jefferson county so which means we're going to stay with this so what we're going to do right now is just hold it here so we have a tornado warning in effect so what's going to happen we are going to let uh i'll take this and taylor's going to start working the equipment i'm going to go back over to the wall so again this is this is going to be a tornado warning in effect and we will get the polygon up on the display the first thing we want to do is show the people who's in and who's out all right so there's the area of rotation again we've seen broad areas of rotation here over the past 15 to 20 minutes with this this is downtown birmingham right here that broad rotation is up interstate 22 again this is adamsville cardiff brookside right in through here so what we're going to do is pop on the polygon so we can tell you who's in and we can tell you who's out in a case like this with a highly populated part of the world here jefferson county so again uh taylor if we can okay has just showed up so there we go this is your polygon right here so again this is downtown birmingham so downtown birmingham at points south you were not in this tornado warning this is for the northern part of jefferson county and again that rotation is located right in through here all right that's interstate 22 right here that's i-65 interstate 22 intersects with i-65 right here that's the circulation so again this is coming out toward the cold coldberg road exit that will ultimately be crossing interstate 65 up here toward fultondale so in this warning we have gardendale we have fultondale we have brookside we have the community of kohlberg and then the communities out here in the eastern part of jefferson county this would include places like center point this would include huffman clay chalkville and trussville so again if you're in any of these places this is when you want to go through your tornado safety plan that would be a small room lowest floor near the center and away from windows we you don't have to be underground but we want you in that safe place and in that safe place we want you wearing a helmet for everybody that really mitigates major injuries if you do have a tornado crossing your particular location so again if you're just joining us it's uh 10 35 now and i'm james spann with taylor staralo we have a tornado warning in effect for the northern part of the birmingham metro area the northern part of jefferson county for this rotation you see here and quite frankly it's not the classic tight circulation but i think maybe as of course of least regret the weather service decided to go ahead and post a warning since this is going to be crossing a very densely populated part of the state of alabama northern jefferson county so again this is u.s 31 right here that's interstate 65 right here gardendale is here fultondale mount olive newcastle this is alabama highway 79 going up toward pinson pinson is involved in this the community of tarrant center point huffman roebuck and then ultimately clay chalkville trussville up here in the northeastern part of the county this is argo near the saint claire county line so if you are in that polygon this is the time to go to a safe place that's a small room closet hall bathroom lowest floor you don't have to be underground if you have an upstairs in the downstairs just be down near the center of the house and no windows and again if you have time and preferably you have one of these in your safe place everybody needs to have a helmet on just in case you do have some damage and there's shrapnel flying and most people that are seriously injured are injured from blunt force trauma so a helmet's a very important thing and i stress if you are not in this polygon there is no other severe weather anywhere else in the state this is the only warning the first warning of the night hopefully the last but again we've got the possibility of a tornado which is right here so taylor if we can take our birmingham sky cam maybe from the power company and point it back up in that direction it's going to be very difficult to show tornadoes at night we all know that especially down here in the southern united states most tornadoes are small they're brief in a case like this they're rain wrapped but again this is jasper want to go to birmingham if we can pull that one up from the power company downtown want to look back to the north and west we're looking at children's of alabama so taylor's going to take that zoom it out and rotate the camera around so we can watch up in that zone but again as you watch this the key message here if you are north of downtown birmingham and again some of the places that we've been calling out adamsville graysville fultondale forestdale gardendale mount olive pinson newcastle tarrant centerpoint clay trussville chalkville anywhere near those communities you want to be in a safe place okay and taylor if we don't have control on that we'll uh let's see is this uh this is looking north okay all right that's uh this is uh from the power company is this children's okay so we're just gonna let this camera look back up into this region here for just a second and see if we can see lightning illuminating any feature that might let us know there's a wall cloud or a tornado there this is a case where again it's very densely populated if there's something there we'll know and i'm surprised there's not that much lightning quite frankly with this view typically i would expect to see with the tornadic type storm the lightning almost being non-stop uh so let's go back to the radar we'll let taylor kind of watch the skycam network and if we see something there we'll come back to that so again uh this is the radar and again within this large mass of heavy rain we have the possibility of what could be a small tornado typically in a case like this this is not a classic night for tornadoes but there could be a small brief tornado right in through here and again to get your bearing straight that's interstate 22 right here this is where it intersects with i-65 right here just north of downtown birmingham fultondale gardendale possible tornado is along or just north of interstate 22 near kohlberg road and that tornadic circulation is going to be crossing over interstate 65 pretty close to fultondale fairly soon within the next couple of minutes so obviously the first call to action here is the fact that nobody should be driving along interstate 65 from really downtown birmingham up to let's say morris and kimberly over the course of the next uh 15 minutes this will be east of i-65 fairly soon but again nobody should be traveling along interstate 65 north of downtown birmingham up here to near the county line the jefferson county line because the last place you want to be is a car and after it crosses i-65 it'll be crossing u.s 31 the most likely location here in terms of where this will be crossing the interstate is just south of gardendale but still if you're in gardendale or mount olive you need to be in a safe place as well you respect the polygon that means if you're in it you do something and if you're not it's okay just watch things but you don't have any danger at this point uh but most likely this will be affecting fultondale just south of gardendale then it's going to be coming out here toward alabama highway 79 which is right here that is alabama highway 75 right here this is uh center point parkway from roebuck up to huffman and center point and again that possible tornadic circulation again is going to be coming through fultondale then coming out here toward robinwood robinwood is a bit south of pinson and then ultimately towards center point and huffman so if you're at any of these places that we're calling out the call to action here is for you guys to be in a safe place and obviously no vehicles no traveling by car in a case like this and of course the other thing where it's not a good situation is for you to be in a mobile home obviously if you are in a mobile home you have to go to a more substantial structure so again we are in the process of working a tornado warning that is currently in effect for the northern part of jefferson county this is james spann with taylor cerrallo and taylor if you see any damage reports please let me know so far no damage reports but uh in the chat we're seeing that some spotters are reporting power flashes potentially and that was near forestail okay uh so again we are at now 10 43 and uh seeing some of the same reports that you are taylor about the power flashes but again so the bottom line is we have a tornado warning in effect now and the best possible thing to do is just to simply watch us and we'll get you through this but uh the circulation is located right here again this is us 31 here that's i-65 right here that circulation is is really crossing over both of these major highways as we speak uh in in fultondale this is fieldstown road right here this is gardendale this is fultondale right here that's your circulation and again most likely this is going to be a little south of gardendale but again if you're in the polygon you you stay sheltered and we'll give you an all clear now we can give an all clear to areas off to the west like adamsville and graysville we'll give you an all clear the concern now is from fultondale back on to the east and again the next major highway is going to be highway 79 which is right here this runs from tarrant all the way up to pinson which is right up here pinson is here taryn is down here this will likely come in around the community of robinwood pawnee which is along highway 79 north of terrence south to pinson and then next it's going to be crossing the parkway out here center point will be probably in the path of this and from there it's going to come out in the general direction of clay chalkville and trussville and we'll see if it maintains its current strength until saint clair county the rotation pretty much all night has been fairly broad but again in this case the rotation is fairly well defined it's not a classic tornadic circulation but no doubt uh we've got evidence of it located right here so the latest volume scans suggest that the tornadic circulation is now east of i-65 and east of u.s 31. give it about five minutes and then you can travel back on interstate 65 and us-31 again most likely it's safe to do that now but we like to give you some pad time so i'd say at about 10 50 it's okay to travel interstate 65 and u.s 31 nobody should be on pinson valley parkway which is this road right here that's alabama highway 79. james we do now have it as a confirmed tornado via debris signature on radar headed towards center point so there's a strong velocity signature and this is now a confirmed tornado okay and again seeing a lot of reports of high wind can we pop the correlation coefficient product on here real quick just to see if we can note that yeah there it is right there so again you notice the negative cc value that represents something other than hydro meteors this is not rain it's not snow it's not sleet it's not hail this would be debris being lofted from below this could be boards bricks glass nails parts of trees or tree limbs or parts of buildings so again we're not calling this a confirmed tornado that is down just to the east of us 31 in the vicinity of fultondale and again that's going to be coming out here toward the community of pawnee which is between tarrant and pinson this is pinson valley parkway alabama highway 79 and then next up is center point all right now january 23rd of 2012 center point had an ef-3 a predawn tornado and this particular tornado seems to be on a similar track maybe not the exact same track but if you were affected by that january 23 2012 tornado you could be affected by this one if you're close to that but again don't get too hung up in the exact points we're calling out here there's the northern boundary of the polygon this is the southern boundary right down and through here and again we stress this does not include the city of birmingham this is all north of birmingham so again we've got a tornadic circulation right now that's east of u.s 31 this is carson road right here and again that's going to be crossing pinson valley parkway pretty soon really around pawnee and then that will be ultimately crossing over into the center point area this is the parkway right here that's out around center point and huffman that goes up to pinson so again pinson centerpoint huffman everybody down to roebuck you need to be sheltered as well small room lowest floor near the center and away from windows so again this is a tornado warning for northern and northeastern jefferson county if you will give you an all clear now i-65 you're good the danger is now east of i-65 the danger is east of u.s 31. there's your possible tornado right there and again this is the negative cc and again that's clearly debris that is being lofted so we can call this a confirmed tornado so at this point we have a confirmed tornado that is down a little east of northeast of fultondale that will be crossing pinson valley parkway and nobody should be on highway 79. pinson valley parkway from tarrant all the way up to pinson just please do not be traveling that road right now if you know somebody that might be traveling that road call them and tell them to just stop and get off and go into a gas station or some type of site built structure for safety and again this is center point and obviously this is a very very densely populated corridor this is pinson center point huffman is down in through here and again that is a very strong indication of debris that is being lofted right now and that tornado is about to cross highway 79 and then moving right up into center point the bottom line is pinson centerpoint huffman roebuck you need to be sheltered right now don't wait on this okay if you're watching it on tv you can watch us on your phone get on the 3340 apps the news app the weather app 3340's facebook page and you can watch this live so again that tornado is about to cross highway 79 near pawnee and then that's going to be crossing alabama highway 75 in the vicinity of center point right here and again i go back to an analog to kind of help people remember what happened on the 23rd of january 2012. we had a tornado in about this same position come right through center point clay and chalkville parts of trussville we had some loss of life with that tornado and i don't know the size of this but that's a very significant debris signature here and even a small tornado is a dangerous tornado and again there's your velocity display right here but again 31 i-65 us-31 all clear the danger is east of there now and that tornado is about to cross over highway 79 between pawnee and pinson uh and that will be crossing highway 75 the center point parkway here coming right through the heart of center point so if you live in center point you need to be sheltered right now you should have been sheltered about 15 minutes ago and the warning was first issued and even all the way down to huffman now roebuck is down here roebuck is not technically in the polygon if you're down toward that part of roebuck around wj christian school down here around first avenue you're okay the concern is going to be basically huffman and center point and pinson all three of these communities are in the polygon right here and from there this is trussville this is clay chalkville is right here so clay chalk will trustful uh same thing you need to be sheltered think back to the 23rd of january that early morning predawn tornado in 2012 and we had loss of life with that tornado and the last thing we want is that again and if you're sheltered in a good safe place with a helmet you're going to be fine so this is the debris tracker and again that is debris that is being lofted by this tornado so this is a confirmed tornado and again that's in the process about to cross over highway 79 basically right now so we have a tornado crossing over highway 79 right now at pawnee which is between pinson and tarrant and then it's going to come right up into center point the heart of center point nobody should be driving along highway 79 that's pinson valley parkway or roebuck parkway highway 75 right here through center point 79 75 do not be driving through either one of those highways right now and then ultimately that's going to leave center point and come out here toward clay and chalkville most likely the danger is going to be north of interstate 59 much like the tornado we had back the 23rd of january on 2012 and we have a new tornado warning that's now being issued for saint clair county for the counties that are downstream from this in that the circulation is confirmed we have a confirmed tornado based on the debris signature this is your new tornado warning for saint clair county and again notice the polygon here this does include odinville i'm sorry odenville is here it includes parts of odinville areas just north of there but mainly u.s 11 interstate 59 springville saint clair springs whitney junction asheville margaret is in the polygon as well that's alabama highway 174 that goes from springville back over to odenville so in addition to center point huffman clay chalkville trussville you should be sheltered if you're in saint clair county now argo springville whitney junction asheville saint clair springs margaret saint clair county the northern part of saint clair county under a tornado warning understand this does not include pell city or that southern part this is the northern end of saint clair county that would include springville and asheville specifically areas roughly along interstate 59. so let's go back to our debris tracker this is a product called correlation coefficient and if you had any reports of damage back there taylor i have not had any reports of damage coming in but uh the national weather service continues let's see if your mic is i don't think we can hear you back there so do we have an audio operator back there in a row okay um so again uh here we go so we've got a possible tornado coming through center point right there my fingers on it all right and that's about the it's crossed over highway 79 that's pinson valley parkway it's about to cross over highway 79 robux center point parkway coming right through center point the heart of center point uh from there it's going to come out toward chalkville clay the northern part of trussville all right that's your possible tornado right there this is center point that's alabama highway 75 that's the parkway and again from center point it's going to come right out toward chalkville and clay the far northern part of trussville and again go back and think about the 23rd of january of 2012 and the path that those that tornado took that was an ef-3 i don't know what rating this is you don't rate a tornado looking at it on radar you rate a tornado after it causes the damage one way or the other it's dangerous all right so again that's coming right through center point right now and then next is going to be chalkville and clay the northern part of trussville then it moves up into saint clair county uh and again the tornado is crossing over highway 79 it's about to cross over highway 75 in center point it's about to come out here across places like the center point elementary school the elementary school had damage back in 2012 with that predawn tornado and again that's going to come right through the core of center point pinson is right here and remember tornadoes are small they're not big counties are large but that tornado is going to more likely stay south of pinson this is downtown pinson the elementary school is right here at my fingertip pinson elementary school but again the tornado is coming through center point right now and then ultimately it's come out here chalkville is located right here center point chalkville clay all right in terms of trussville this will affect the far northern part of trussville and again for those that were here in 2012 think about that path uh the main downtown part of trussville is way down here the tornadic circulation is going to affect the far far far northern part of trussville again up here toward clay and chalkville so center point chalkville clay be sheltered now and again by being sheltered we're talking a small room on the lowest floor near the center away from windows everybody has a helmet the other things we like for people to have hard sole shoes if you have to walk across a tornado debris field your feet can be shredded and at the same time everybody needs a portable air horn as well okay all right so again this is your tornadic circulation which is right here again don't worry about that this is what we're concerned about right here again this is about to cross through highway 75 right now this is pinson okay that's highway 75 going up toward oniana and blount county and again you can see the new polygon that has been drawn in and this newer polygon is a smaller polygon because we have a very well defined location of this tornado and again this will be passing really north of trussville chalkville is right here the community of clay is right here so if you are anywhere near these places we're calling out you need to be sheltered right now okay no cars no mobile homes because those are the worst possible places to be in a situation like this and obviously when the warning was initiated about 20 minutes ago that's when mobile home residents should have gone to a shelter or to any gas station anything that's open 24 hours a day so again we're still watching the tornadic circulation that is coming up into chalkville right now it's come on through center point uh aim some damage reports uh at walker's chapel road exit on i-65 high tension power lines down across exit ramp okay and again that represents a tornado and i will say the debris we are seeing here is being in fact this is velocity let's go back to the debris and again once again that debris is being lofted most likely to 10 15 000 feet up and this is parts of buildings and boards and bricks and glass and nails and structures like that and again we can see a lot of power flashes from people these are transformers that are being disrupted so again there's your debris signature right there it's crossed over highway 75 and again this is not too far from center point elementary center point high school irwin intermediate school and again from here it's going to come on out toward clay and chalkville chalkville is located right here and so again this is your polygon right here the polygon has been it's gotten smaller in that we know exactly where the tornado is located now based on the debris we're seeing on radar uh trussville is down here the main part of trussville but again this is something you've got to take seriously we say now this is a confirmed tornado we didn't have this product 10 years ago this is part of the new dual polarization products that we started using about six seven eight years ago but this is an amazing product where we can actually see debris being lofted the product is called correlation coefficient you see a negative drop in that and we're still let's go back to the reflectivity for just a second taylor yeah there's some talk in the chat about the uh the double right you've got a lowered cc up in through here let's look at the velocity next that's reflectivity so let's go look at the velocity and again you can see that there's not really any strong evidence there's evidence of rotation right down here but not really up in through here uh so again we're going to focus on this southern part which is right here and again this is the possible tornado that is in the process of coming through center point then coming through the process of or coming through chalkville then coming through clay and then moving up into saint clair county i want to expand it really quickly and let's show this new tornado warning for saint clair county just to give people a heads up that's up in sinclair county north and east of this so again i want to stress uh this is your polygon for saint clair county this is where people should be sheltered and really it's specifically for people that live near us 11 or near interstate 59 springville to asheville and again saint sinclair springs whitney junction horse pins 40. straight mountains up in blount county so that's north of the polygon but notice that odinville branchville pell city wattsville not in this warning we do not issue warnings based on counties we issue warnings based on geometric shapes polygons and that tornadoes do not affect an entire county they affect a small part of a county we're trying to stop all this over warning and that's the reason that these kick the storm-based warnings kicked in years ago so again we've got a possible tornado coming out of northeastern jefferson into saint claire let's go back and take a look at the debris once again as we are in the process of watching this right there that is the representation of the tornadic debris signature that is in the process of moving northeast and taylor i'm going to let you kick in for just a second while i change computers so i'll be right back okay so yeah we're watching what has been a confirmed tornado across parts of jefferson county just moved through center point this is going to continue heading northeastward so that puts candlewood lakes in the path of this circulation it's moving through the northern portion of chalkville and as we look at the velocity this is going to be the different wind speeds different directions at this point does look like that circulation is starting to move a little bit farther northeastward towards eagle ridge and sometimes what happens is when we're looking at that correlation coefficient that debris signature it can follow the actual circulation just a bit so what i want to do is hold it here on the velocity and i'm seeing the indication the best indication of rotation at this point moving through eagle ridge candlewood lakes that's moving through the city of clay so county road 30. if you live along county road 30 you need to make sure you are in your safe place eventually this will be moving towards dogwood estates in the coming minutes so if any of these roads sound familiar to you if you live along trussville clay road if you live along county road 30 this is when you need to be in your safe space the good news at this point i'm seeing a little bit of an indication of broadening of that rotation but this has been a confirmed tornado so we need to treat it as that and we do have some damage reports back east of i-65 from this circulation we're starting to see more damage reports come in from from some of the folks that did deal with the same circulation so this is a a storm that we need to take very seriously i'm going to put back on that correlation coefficient and at this point not seeing a super strong indication of that lowering of the cc co-located with that velocity signature so that could indicate that at least for a moment maybe we're not seeing that debris lofted but these these storms certainly cycle so at times they will be on the ground and you can see it lift for a little bit and then it can tighten back up so what we're going to do is we're going to continue watching that circulation i'm going to change it back here to the velocity so we can get a good idea of where exactly we are seeing the strongest indication of rotation at this point getting some new information here so the tornado warning continues so we are looking at that circulation that is near the city of clay and at this point a little bit harder to pick out where exactly that circulation is but it does appear this would be the area here near candlewood lakes where we are seeing the strongest indications of rotation at this point so candlewood lakes close to the clay chalkville high school so again some of the neighborhoods up in through there pilgrim's rest clay chalkville high school just be aware that it's again the analog to this is the 23rd of january uh 2012 and and i'm not saying this is the same strength i'm not saying it's the exact same path it's probably not but it's close and if you're anywhere close to that path in 2012 you certainly need to be sheltered and again this is clay chalkville road right up here so again this tornadic signature here is going to be soon moving out of jefferson into sinclair counties this is the county line right here so this will be out of jefferson county fairly soon and into saint clair county exclusively here in a matter of minutes so we can give jefferson county an all clear in probably about 10 minutes but again we are watching the chat sessions here and a lot of social media reports and again we've had some reports of trees down at the moment at the moment i don't have reports of structural damage although there are reports of neighborhoods impacted on the east side of interstate 65 and fultondale we also have reports of significant damage at the walker chapel road exit on i-65 with high tension power lines down across the exit ramp so again there's apparently been damaged from this in the fulton dale area you saw that signature coming right through fultondale so again this is velocity let's go back to the correlation coefficient product the debris tracker if you will and again we're starting to lose that signature which is a good thing uh so again the signature in terms of debris and again this is what we're watching right here and notice how it begins to fade away as it comes up here toward you know clay and clay chocolate high school clay elementary school and that's a good thing and hopefully that trend continues but it could be cycling these will be somewhat cyclic this evening sometimes the these things get wrapped up and they occlude and they go away and then they redevelop but this is the first warning of the night so far up until now these storms have been pretty well behaved uh but again we've got a tornado warning for the northeastern corner of jefferson county and this is specifically for clay and chalkville and argo is right down in through here and then it's going to cross over into saint clair county springville is located right here old springville road runs down here through clay and that's old springville road and then this is interstate 59 right here that's u.s 11 right here so really anybody from clay back over to springville obviously you want to be sheltered we hope that the signature continues to diminish and it has in the last few volume scans but at this point the warning the tornado warning will continue the tornado moving northeast we should mention we have a severe thunderstorm warning for pickens county in west alabama this is for a storm on the western side of the state and again there's no evidence of a tornado here but just to give you a quick note we have the possibility of large hail falling in this storm that is coming up through pickensville that will be coming out toward carrollton and aliceville so again for pickens county that is a severe thunderstorm warning this in effect until 12 midnight tonight but again we're going to focus on the tornado warning so let's go back to saint claire and northeastern jefferson counties and we are going to watch to see how this whole thing plays out in fact let's let's leave that wide view in for just a second just going to give you a reference point birmingham is right here the tornado came through fultondale it's been coming up through pawnee center point clay chalkville and it's about to cross over into sinclair county weather's just horrible in saint clair county really from asheville back down here toward margaret springville sinclair springs there could be some small hail falling and again we're we're watching not just that rain but we're watching for the tornadic circulation so let's go to the velocity product this is going to be looking at the wind speeds relative to the radar and we'll kind of focus in on the county line and the signature is getting more noisy it's it's more ill-defined if you will let's look at the debris tracker see if we can find the negative cc hole in this thing about right here and uh at this point the last time we looked we didn't see much and we don't see much right now that's just a lot of noise so at the moment it looks like the tornado perhaps is lifted but again the warning has not been canceled so until the warning is canceled you stay sheltered but we're about to give an all clear to everybody in jefferson county in about 10 minutes we can give an all clear to center point we can give an all clear to fultondale we can give it all clear to pawnee areas back to the south and west tornadic circulation is moving into sinclair county so again to the west most of jefferson county the danger is over from this storm but that broad circulation is about to cross into saint clair county this is the county line jefferson county here saint clair county here this is springville u.s 11 interstate 59 this is argo this is margaret which is right down through here this is saint claire springs on alabama highway 23 which between springville and asheville you go up here to asheville whitney junction so if you're in any of these places we talked about you still want to be sheltered i hope in a few minutes we can give you an all clear because again the signature is getting very noisy on this it is not a well-defined tornadic signature like we had from 10 30 until about 11 o'clock tonight i'd say for that 30-minute stretch it was a very well-defined tornado that was lofting debris it was down and again as soon as we get uh some damage reports we'll be passing that along here but it looks like there was clearly some damage along interstate 65 walker's chapel road fultondale some of the neighborhoods east of fultondale but again this is saint claire county right in through here so this is our danger we're down to really two polygons a very small one for the northeastern corner of jefferson county this includes clay but you can see the circulation is basically in the process of crossing over into saint clair county so in a matter of minutes we can give jefferson county an all clear again uh taylor's kind of suggesting with the greatest circulation is showing up now it's around argo and again it's pretty broad this is not really a classic tornado signature at this point but that could change in a matter of minutes these again can be very cyclic uh and this is producing torrents of rain and through here there could be some flash flooding issues there could be some small hail falling as well but again to get your bearing straight that's interstate 59 right here uh this is u.s 231 that goes up to aniana down to asheville down to pell city and again this is the rotation detector this is one of the products coming off the radar system showing the greatest potential of rotation is sitting on the jefferson sinclair county line east of clay north of argo and again that'll be coming out here probably a little bit north of margaret and maybe south of springville so let's put the correlation coefficient back and again that's going to be labeled as a debris tracker and the good news i have to report is the fact that basically that tds has gone away for now the tornado debris signature we do have a new report from fultondale of multiple power lines down and structural damage throughout the city of fultondale right and again this is coming from the weather service in birmingham so again reports of downed lines and structural damage throughout fultondale and at the time we had that tds on the radar when it came through fultondale and i would imagine we have damage probably in pawnee and over into center point we don't know that for sure but based on the radar it sure looks like we we have and that's a very densely populated part of the world here in alabama jefferson county so as we get additional reports from news we'll be passing that along but again our concern it's warning you of these storms that are in progress right now and there's just two severe storms in the state this is the one with a tornado warning we've got pickens county with a severe thunderstorm warning but again we've got broad circulation and again that you can see that it might be trying to develop down to the south again this is margaret again a lot of new neighborhoods here beautiful school a possible tornado is awfully close to the town of margaret which is here this is in saint clair county but i will say now we can give jefferson county an all clear so again for everybody in jefferson all clear clay chalkville trussville all clear the concern now is exclusively into sinclair county so again evidence of a circulation right here that's going to be coming up pretty close to margaret south of springville and again let's go back to the correlation coefficient product for uh to see if we have any debris being lofted and no we don't at this point so the best possible case here is that that broad circulation is aloft it's not down and we're not having any debris showing up so i would say at this point most likely the circulation is a law but it really doesn't matter when it comes to what you do you want to be sheltered and saint clear and again jefferson county all clear the warning for jefferson has been canceled by the weather service in birmingham it's over so the the problem now is exclusively into a sinclair county so again springville is right here interstate 59 coming up toward asheville asheville is right here whitney junction is right up here that's us-11 and uh i we don't see debris being lofted but let's go back to velocity and uh the beauty i mean we could only dream of doing this years ago it's amazing how far technology has come but this is just really broad rotation in through here it's just hard to find tight rotation within this storm at the moment at the moment uh and if the trend continues the weather service might let this warning be they might cancel the warning it's a distinct possibility but until they do that you stay sheltered so again springville asheville saint claire springs margaret you stay sheltered until we give you an all clear which hopefully we can do fairly soon so when i go back to pickens real quick taylor want to go to west alabama this is saint claire county you stay sheltered we're going to come right back to this in just a second in pickens county there's no tornado warning this is a severe thunderstorm warning that is for this thunderstorm cluster that could produce damaging straight-line winds and large hail this is about to come through carrollton carrollton right here that's the county seat of pickens county that's highway 17 coming south out of reform gordo is right here and this is your polygon and again notice it is a yellow polygon not a red polygon that means this is a severe thunderstorm warning until midnight so again potential for strong straight-line winds and of course if that continues that will wind up in tuscaloosa county and clearly up here in the northwestern part of the county you might see some small hail as well up here above brownville back up toward the fayette county line in newtonville so let's go back to saint clair county it is now 11 13 i'm james spann with taylor cerallo working a severe weather situation tonight and this warning for jefferson has been cancelled so jefferson county all clear saint clair county this is the concern and again you can see the polygon goes as far northeast as asheville whitney junction horse pins 40 and chandler mountain we've got very broad circulation down in through here this is not tight like you'd expect to see when there's a tornado down but still this could change we're watching to see if this wants to cycle back up and i think that's the right thing to do instead of canceling the warning let's see if it cycles back up but at the moment that's not a classic tornado signature here there could be some strong straight-line winds and certainly tremendous amounts of rain we'll check the correlation coefficient for debris being lofted and it's not there there's no evidence of that so we have no debris being lofted there's no evidence of a tornado let's go back to the reflectivity and obviously it's just pouring rain in through here just absolutely pouring rain in through this part of saint clair county but still if you're in this polygon you respect the polygon and stay sheltered and again we advise no mobile homes no cars which means we certainly don't want people driving along interstate 59. this is the new adjusted polygon and the weather service keeps adjusting these to fit where they believe the greatest chance of rotation will be and again you can see that it's taken downtown springville out of this and the concern is really south of springville that's highway 174 right here runs from odenville back up to springville and again i just can't even pick out a spot to show you here there's not a tornadic signature at the moment we'll see if one redevelops but still stay sheltered folks with the springville mailing address are probably just south of downtown springville down here same thing for margaret although most likely the greatest danger is east of margaret at this point and certainly those of you in asheville and shull creek valley which is located right down through here this is u.s 231 that goes down to a watchful in pell city this is 411 that goes down to odinville and branchville so again at the moment here at 11 15 11 16 now we have very broad rotation over sinclair county but we don't have a tornado signature to show you the weather service is going to maintain that tornado warning for a little bit longer to see if a tornado circulation redevelops which might happen this storm apparently has called significant damage in parts of northern jefferson county specifically around fultondale beyond that i don't know what's happened in center point or huffman or clay or chalkville i don't have that information at this point and again our folks in the news department are working to get information again reports from fultondale we have damage around walker chapel road indian valley road carson road unknown injuries at this point that's from the police chief and carol robinson with ale.com who's reporting tonight so again there has been significant damage with this storm north of birmingham in northern jefferson but again there is no tornado signature in through here at this point that is just a lot of rain it's windy we have thunder we have lightning but no tornadic signature no debris being lofted at this point for saint clair county the air is a little more stable over here we had kind of a wedge today affecting places like gadsden gadsden stayed in the 50s much of the day while parts of west alabama flirted with 80 today so as this continues pushing northeast that will encounter a more stable air mass and most likely the odds of this dropping another tornado are decreasing with time and especially as the storm moves on to the east again calhoun county is not in the tornado watch because conditions really don't favor tornadoes there but still we're going to keep an eye on this and this is the reason we're here on tv at 11 17 as for this one tornado warning that is currently in effect for saint clair county the northern part okay listen if you're in pell city this has nothing to do with you you're not even close to this you might have thunder and lightning and wind and rain but in terms of a tornado threat no again pell city is way down here this is u.s 231 going south odinville and branchville moody you're not in this okay this is all north of 411 until the time it gets to about asheville asheville high school sits right here the sinclair county courthouse they have two courthouses in saint clair county one in asheville one in pell city the northern courthouse in asheville right in the middle of downtown here this is 411 coming up toward gadsden and again that's 231 coming up toward whitney junction which is right here and then horse pins 40 is up on the mountain so taylor any additional reports from your end in terms of damage that you're seeing not that i'm seeing so far um but i do i feel that we will start to get some more coming in especially just based on that debris signature that we saw let me just say i got a good report family and pilgrims rest in clay and they're safe they were not safe in 2012 they were hit that's great news uh so i i've not heard specifically of reports of damage from chalkville clay argo that far northeastern end of jefferson county the damage ports all coming out of fultondale and that thing looked nasty we saw the debris being lofted and it came from fultondale over toward pawnee the pinson valley parkway and then into center point but we've heard of no specific damage uh over there at this point uh so again if you're just joining us here it's 11 20. i'm james spann with taylor cerrado and many of you are watching on your phone however you're watching we're glad you're here and again remember when we're on television all of our energy is focused right here uh so we we thank you for for joining us and for watching this tonight i want to go back to a big map with a tornado watch because i want to show a big picture a lot of people are asking taylor can i go to bed now is the severe weather threat over so i want to show you who is out of the severe weather risk okay we're going to pop the tornado watch on the display here and there's your cold front you can pick it out right there but a number of counties have been cleared from the tornado watch and you can see that we have lamar marion winston franklin lawrence colbert lauderdale morgan limestone the severe weather risk has ended for you the risk continues in the counties here in yellow the tornado watch in effect until 1 a.m the surface cold front is located right here these storms are on the front and you can see we have a severe thunderstorm warning in effect for pickens county for the possibility of damaging straight-line winds and maybe some hail with that storm that is moving into tuscaloosa but other than that there are no warnings on the western side of the state the reason we are on tv it's this thing right here this storm came across northern jefferson the warning was issued at about 10 35 tonight and right as the newscast was ending so that that's when the warning was posted by the weather service in birmingham and soon after that we saw the debris being lofted we've had damage in fultondale in areas just north of downtown birmingham but again that thunderstorm cluster is in saint clair county this is a flood advisory that's being posted by the weather service the the green polygon that's not a flash flood warning but a flood advisory for the possibility of flooding with the tremendous rain rates we're seeing in here but let's go back into sinclair county taylor we're going to focus in on that storm that's the only tornado warning we currently have in the state at this point and again we have reports now from center point fire of structure damage in the 500 block of sun hill road so this is the first reports of damage i've seen from center point this is coming from center point fire and apparently we also just had a caller to our newsroom reporting uh structure damage and trees down north and northeast center point as well so we're starting to get those reports right and that's it takes a while for us to get these reports because often cell service goes down and we just can't get them but we know there's been damage in fultondale now we know there's been damage in center point and again i've not seen any damage in chalkville and clay the signature was not as fierce in chalkville clay northern trussville as it was coming through fultondale and center point in this case but again this is the current situation for saint clair county this is your tornado warning the green polygon that is an aerial flood advisory but we're going to focus on this polygon right in through here so let's go back to our velocity display and see what this looks like and again there's just not a tornado signature right here strong winds yes straight line winds a definite possibility here but again there's just nothing to show you in terms of a tornado signature let's look just for the fun of it at the correlation coefficient debris tracker and that's going to show nothing so debris is not being lofted we see no evidence of a tornado and again the weather service will make an option on whether to expire this early or not the tornado warning for saint clair is scheduled to expire anyway in seven minutes and uh they might just let it go based on the fact that this storm has had a history of producing very significant damage so one way or the other this thing will expire at 11 30. i doubt that they extend it because there's no reason to do that there's nothing happening right now and again the good news is this moves more to the east again this is etowah county this is calhoun county down here the air is much more stable in through here it was cooler today with a wedge cold air damming and that means most likely we're not going to have an issue with a major issue with severe weather up in through here so let's go back to reflectivity this is the debris tracker that's the reflectivity it's just pouring uh and let's put lightning just for the fun of it on here i know there's so much it's going to be hard to see what's underneath that this is real time lightning and then you see just almost constant lightning output here this is gadsden all the way down interstate 59 to asheville down interstate 59 to springville odinville you've got heavy rain falling and understand heavy rain falling doesn't mean there's a tornado we often people say well it's horrible weather here well we are focusing in on places where there's a tornado something that can kill you we have to focus in on that you know you're not going to melt in the rain here although flash flooding could be a serious issue if you have a long duration rain event like this but we think we won't have major flooding here so let's go back to our velocity display and really in a case like this velocity is going to tell the story um we've got a report that a hotel in fultondale has been evacuated because of a gas leak and again that's the kind of stuff that's going on in fultondale and again as soon as we can get video back safely from a crew that's up there and i did check our fultondale skycam earlier taylor that is down so we don't have that at our fingertips here but again this is your polygon and there's no tornado here again this is not a tornado signature down here so this warning will expire in less than five minutes unless something dramatic happens here in our sky watcher network it sounds like we there are there's a lot of damage in fultondale okay a lot a lot of damage in fultondale yeah john talbot is probably one of the best scanner guys in the world here i see brian falls is on here um yeah let me just kind of go through what uh john is saying center point fire reporting heavy damage off sun hill road and carson road they're doing a search and rescue now [Music] we have to be really careful here there's a lot of reports and we're trying to give you credible reports [Music] we have reports of collapsed houses on newcastle road reports of a person trapped in a car state troopers are staging with fultondale police off walker's chapel to assist other law enforcement agencies are coming in to assist as well a tarrant in north smithfield fire on the way to assist fultondale um and again we're getting reports of multiple entrapments on newcastle road so again we've clearly had major major damage in fultondale heavy structural damage to several homes got a report of a family trapped in a house because of a tree down and it i will say taylor it sounds like we do have some injuries here the extent of those beyond that we just don't know at this point and so again it's 11 27 and we're kind of focusing on damage now there's no tornado going on here this this warning is going to expire in um less than three minutes and the odds of additional warnings i'd say are fairly small and there's a lot of images we have to be really careful in what we show here um just to be sure that we we don't want to show something that's not there a lot of people um you know send things that just aren't true but i tell you what uh what i want to do we're going to show some of this and again taylor i'm going to let you pick it up here for just a second while i uh okay and i'm going to take a look at the big picture again here just so for folks who are tuning in maybe you're hearing thunder and you're wondering what's going on so we do still have a severe thunderstorm warning for parts of pickens county so i'm going to zoom you down and show you where that is because we do not believe that there is a tornado associated with that tornado warning for saint claire at this time we do have heavy rain probably some gusty winds going on across parts of pickens county near gordo but i want to take us a little bit farther northward because parts of northern tuscaloosa county seeing some very very heavy rain at this point where you see that purple color there that's indicating some very heavy rain possibly some small hail with that as well no severe thunderstorm warning for this storm at this point but if you live in samantha or gorgas you are definitely hearing lots of thunder you can see lots of lightning with that storm as well heavy rain extends north and east from that across parts of walker county just south of jasper along i-22 so near parish dora sipsi we do have heavy rain lots of lightning and then that thunderstorm extends into southern coleman county as well so at this point we do have two warnings on the board well now just one so that warning for pickens county was allowed to be expired because that storm in that area looked like it was weakening we are expecting the tornado warning that you see flashing there for saint clair county to expire in about 30 seconds and we do not see a circulation indicating a tornado on the ground with that so at this point no warnings across our state but we are watching some strong thunderstorms and the strongest thunderstorm right now does appear to be or at least the strongest part of this thunderstorm does appear to be in northern tuscaloosa county so that's north of the city of tuscaloosa just south of berry in fayette county near windham springs i don't think our windham springs camera is working right now but definitely a lot of lightning going on in northern tuscaloosa county some small hail possible but at this point yes this is a strong thunderstorm it's likely loud but it is not a severe limit at this point so we're going to continue monitoring that and you can see a lot of that lightning indicating yes probably some small hill i actually want to put on our hill product here it is indicating that some hail is possibly falling in between samantha and windham springs at this point but not likely large enough to prompt a severe warning at this point so i do want to zoom us back out and we will just kind of go up and down that line and we'll talk about where we do have thunderstorms happening at this point you do see another polygon across the border in mississippi that's going to be south of philadelphia a lot a lot of lightning with that thunderstorm so that's going to be the next storm that we're probably watching as it moves in from mississippi but at this point it is not into alabama yet and we will talk about it more when it does get into alabama right now we do have some rain falling in aliceville some strong thunderstorm activity in northern tuscaloosa county but i want to remind you we have no warnings in our state at this point moving into walker county we have widespread rain lots of thunder and then the good news is at this point we have seen things quiet down a bit northern jefferson county where there's likely cleanup going on we've had those reports of lots of damage coming from fultondale with that likely tornado that we just saw touchdown within the last hour or so so a little bit of break in the rain there for some of the cleanup effort but this next round of rain will be moving into northern jefferson county here pretty soon so it's not going to be a long-lived break but right now not so much in the way of rainfall still raining very very hard over saint clair county so very heavy rainfall a lot of lightning so you're hearing a lot of thunder likely some gusty winds but this storm as well is not at severe limits at this point in gadsden we do have a lot of lightning so let me see here if our gadsden camera is working and we can show that the damage reports while we're talking here and again let's be really careful about you know what we're seeing a lot of what you see on social media is not from tonight there's a lot of images floating around and a lot of this stuff is just not happening tonight and again people mean well by sharing it but we have to be really careful and understand some of what you see is not really happening some is there's been major damage in fultondale i'll tell you that and again we have reports of people that have been injured people that have been trapped in homes because of trees we have reports of roofs off homes we have reports of collapsed houses there is major damage in the community of fultondale this is just north of downtown birmingham and again for those that are listening over the news department as soon as you guys can get a live shot up there please let me know and we'll we'll take that i would much rather take a live shot from our staff instead of a lot of these questionable images that we're seeing some of it might be legit a lot of it is not but again at this point it's 11 33 and let's make it perfectly clear we have no warnings in effect now no tornado warnings in effect and we have no severe thunderstorm warnings in effect the bottom line is there are no warnings let's take the lightning data off because there's so much lightning we're just going to show the radar and again in saint clair county we'll give you an all clear all clear asheville springville saint claire springs whitney junction you're good and again this the rotation went away about 15 minutes ago we've got heavy rain thunder lightning gusty winds in through here but again for the moment everything you see across the northern part of the state is under severe limits [Music] so again we have the biggest damage is concentrated around parts of fultondale and center point there's been structural damage and apparently we've had injuries beyond that i can't tell you more than that and we're not in the business of reporting rumors here everything you see on the tweeter and the face bag is not necessarily all true and you've got to be somewhat used discretion when it comes to reporting things here on television and that's what we try and do the truth is trailer now we're not trained in journalism but we have to learn it and you'll learn real quick that a lot of what you see is just not true so again we're going to report facts as we go through here and begin to see reports of damage coming in from tonight so taylor i'll turn it back over to you and let you pick it up for a few minutes and i'll be right back with more damage reports okay i'm gonna once again for those of you who are tuning in we came on the air over an hour ago with a tornado warning in northern jefferson county and so you hear us talking about those damage reports and it does seem like at this point the worst of the damage coming from fultondale but we're getting more and more reports and i kind of want to take you on a tour of what's going on out there right now you might be tuning in because it's raining really hard where you live or you're hearing the thunder at this point we have no warnings across our state we had a few warnings earlier but now those have all been allowed to expire this is a loop over the last hour i'm going to stop it here and we're just going to kind of go along that line and look at what's going on right now at this point we do not have any thunderstorms that are severe of severe limits so yes it might be loud certainly probably windy heavy rain but nothing at this point that we are concerned with in terms of severe weather so south of pickensville we do have heavy rain falling near aliceville that stretches just south of gordo into northwestern tuscaloosa county so if you live north of coker if you live in buell if you live in brownville we are seeing heavy rain there likely lots of lightning as well and then we do have an indication of potentially some small hail falling through locations like windham springs through wiley so along 69 there and this yes is likely producing some gusty winds as well but not severe limits so we do not have a severe thunderstorm warning in tuscaloosa county and at this point we aren't really seeing any indications of rotation this point this looks like it is likely just some gusty winds and some hail moving a little bit farther northward we do have heavy rain near oakman cordova jasper good springs so very heavy rain there likely some thunder but nothing of severe limits at this point and then stretching up into coleman county along i-65 south of dodge city we have some heavy rain and then i wanted to take you back to that storm with the history of producing a tornado so at this point at this point we're still seeing heavy rain near asheville ragland that's moving over towards ohachi that's south of gadsden and within the last few minutes here i want to put that lightning data back on we have seen quite a bit of lightning with these storms but nothing severe at this time that circulation has weakened and as james has mentioned we're dealing with cooler air more stable air in northeastern alabama so we're not expecting a re-intensification as those storms do continue on an eastward track so at this point there is nothing severe in our state i do want to take you across the border though there's another storm that we're keeping a close eye on you see a lot of lightning there just south of philadelphia in mississippi and so that's going to be our next storm that we're going to watch carefully at this point just a severe thunderstorm warning with that but that will be crossing over into sumter county within the next hour or so and this entire line will keep moving southward through the overnight hours and into early tomorrow morning and as that happens the threat of severe weather is going to diminish so as this this front continues to move southward you're going to start to see more and more counties whittled away from that tornado watch we haven't showed that in a while so i am going to put that back on here many counties still included in that tornado watch which does last through 1am so i want to put that on here for us and we can get an idea because there are some counties in northwest alabama that have been allowed to be dropped from that so as we go toward the radar reflectivity you see quite a few of our counties here included in that so basically if you've seen the thunderstorms come through your area so far then you are done this line that we're dealing with right now is going to be the main line along that leading edge of the cold front which is going to continue slowly moving southward overnight and into early tomorrow morning we did have let me interrupt i'm sorry we've got a lot of major damage and i want to focus on that we don't have any warnings right now so let me just uh in this business we have to kind of have a balance between dangerous weather and what's happened there all these storms are below severe limits so i just want to mention some reports from the fultondale fire chief he says we've been hit bad multiple injuries multiple houses trees down everywhere people are trapped so again this is from the fulton dale fire chief coming to our news department we've been hit bad multiple injuries multiple houses trees and people trapped and again as soon as we get the live views up from the newsroom or from fultondale please let me know we're going to take that live and they should be up there right now um so again the the and again i do believe that the you know we've been seeing this you know these images of the hampton inn uh up there near the lows and i believe that those images are legitimate there are a lot of uh rescue vehicles headed toward that hampton inn off i-65 vestavia is on the way now into fultondale with heavy rescue equipment and technical assistance so again there's obviously a lot of issues here tonight in fultondale in terms of damage and again we're going to stay here with you we're not going anywhere and we're is we are efforting images here in just a second here's a report of insulation falling in pinson from fultondale most likely this is debris that was being lofted from fultondale the debris this was insulation landing in pinson which is an example of what we have seen going on here tonight and again for those that have not seen it um i'll show this image here in just a second so again the the bottom line is we've had major damage in fultondale that is the hardest hit area we've also had reports of other significant damage can you take wex05 i don't know uh jd thank you uh again this is what this is the image that a lot of people are seeing uh on social media tonight we now have reason to believe that that is legitimate that is the hampton inn in fultondale that's on walker's chapel road up there by the lowe's and the chick-fil-a and the whataburger and beyond that i i don't know if we have any uh injuries in that structure uh but again uh when these images first came out we just had to to vet some of this and just be sure that um that it's legitimate we have reason to believe that it is there's just a lot of damage up in through there so again uh the greatest concern here in terms of damage tonight it's coming from forest dale or i'm sorry fultondale which is north of downtown birmingham over into the community of pawnee and then over into the city of center point in that zone that's where we had constant debris being lofted on radar tonight and again do we have a producer back in the back by any chance anybody in my ear we do not at this point all right so uh okay okay uh and again if you could just help guide me because this is rapidly shifting into a situation where we're going from weather into news and we're going to need as much support from the news department as we can so again this is the big picture with the radar tonight it might be thundering and lightning you've got windy conditions where you are but there's no risk of a tornado at this moment there are no tornado warnings there's a tornado watch for the counties in yellow until 1am that's for about the next hour and 15 minutes but again that line of storms now through parts of pickens tuscaloosa walker blunt saint clair calhoun etowah counties tremendous amounts of rain thunder lightning and gusty winds but all throughout this we have no evidence of a tornado at this point and we have no evidence of damaging straight-line winds or large hail that's the reason there are no warnings again a lot of the the really significant damage is right around walker chapel road oddly enough we have a sky cam there but unfortunately it's down damage reported to the hampton inn you saw that image damage reported there to lowe's and to some of the other businesses we have many reports of homes that have been damaged where there is actually some entrapment and again to give you the quote from the fulton dale fire chief and this is the best way to tell you what he told us we've been hit bad there are multiple injuries multiple houses have been damaged or destroyed we have trees down everywhere and people trapped so again that's the situation in fultondale and again that tornado came through fultondale and then went out around pawnee on highway 79 the pinson valley parkway then crossed over into center point and we've had some reports of damage in center point as well i can actually take us back if we want to follow that debris signature and again the the let's go back to that hampton end picture on waxo five if we can real quick uh again that is uh what you have been seeing and that is confirmed uh that the roof has been blown off the structure and there's obviously very significant damage at the hampton inn right there at walker's chapel road in fultondale and again you can see that there is major major damage there and this is just an example of some of the other things that are happening in fultondale tonight we've had reports another hotel in fultondale evacuated because of a gas leak center point fire reporting structure damage on sun hill road uh and a lot of other damage ports coming in as well uh let's just leave that picture up for just a second um yeah we should have uh a live shot coming up here fairly soon from this but again the good news at this point we don't have any severe weather in progress now and for those that are watching in other parts of the country fultondale from the business district in downtown birmingham is about only about maybe five miles north of say the bjcc uh legacy arena the protected life stadium uptown just five miles north of there that's how close it is to downtown birmingham the tornado crossed over i-65 i've heard of no specific injuries on the highway uh but again we have many folks that are uh struggling right now and again we're going to stay with this and as soon as we get the live shots up we're going to take those and if anybody in the back can assist me and let me know as soon as that's going to happen that would be great so taylor you take it for just a second okay and i was just going to go back for uh one minute here and show you what we were looking at we keep talking about this debris signature so you can see this was at 10 40 p.m and at this point we did not have a debris signature but then you're going to start to see that blue show up just north of fultondale and that's where we did have that indication of ongoing tornado damage occurring lasted through about center point and then that's when we lost that debris signature at this point we do not have any warnings or any any tornado warnings any severe thunderstorm warnings in our state we do still have that tornado watch that lasts through 1am but at this point we're just talking about heavy rain we've got lots of lightning out there thunder likely some gusty winds at times but nothing that is severe so we're going to continue to monitor these these storms as we move through the rest of the evening because we do still have that severe threat through about 1am but at this point there is nothing that is severe so i do want to take you along that line we'll just kind of get an idea of where some of the heaviest rain is falling right now and we are looking at some heavy rain about to move into the northern parts of downtown tuscaloosa so near coker we do have that heavy rain at this point some gusty winds and we're watching this line very carefully because when we start to see some of those kinks in the line that's where we could indicate the possibility of some rotation at this point i want to put on the velocity not showing anything at this point too concerning but we're going to continue to watch this line carefully because it doesn't take much for us to see sometimes with these broken lines of the possibility of some spin up tornadoes that's why we have that 20 to watch through 1am at this point we're not seeing the indication of that heavy rain falling over aliceville the heavy rain stretches through tuscaloosa county towards walker county there near dora tipsy parish we have that heavy rain i want to go to one picture real quick on waxo five i mean to interrupt we're just going to try and show these this is the outback steakhouse in fultondale and again you can see there's major damage there and again this is all around walker chapel road which is uh the interstate 65 exit right there there's a best buy there's a chick-fil-a uh lowe's the hampton inn you saw the damage at the hampton so i just wanted to show that taylor that is damaged at the outback steakhouse in fultondale back over to you okay and at this point we do have kind of a break in the rain over fultondale but this line of rain is going to continue moving southward so i'd say within the next half hour or so that rain is going to pick back up nothing severe at this point but we do have that rain moving back into fultondale so that is something to keep in mind as those cleanup efforts are going on here we've got rain falling over warrior near hayden so blount county in aniana we've got some rain falling some lightning as well but nothing severe and then we do have a mass of very heavy rain moving through parts of calhoun county this is going to be just north of jacksonville stretching back towards ohachie and into ragland and st claire county the heaviest rain right now south of the city of gadsden and at this point as i keep saying we really we don't have any ongoing warnings we do have that tornado watch so i want to show you where that is so if you are still included in this watch you want to make sure you are paying attention to the weather over the next couple of hours make sure you've got a way to get those warnings as we do see that risk of a few strong to severe storms ongoing through about 1am and i do expect that the national weather service here will begin to drop some more counties from this watch as we see that line move farther southward you can tell that they've already dropped lamar marion and winston counties from this tornado watch in other counties across northwest and north alabama so that trend will continue through the rest of the night but at this point there is still a threat for some severe weather in the next few hours as this line keeps moving southward outside of that watch we do have some rain falling across parts of coosa county talapoosa county clay county so you're hearing some rain at this point but you are not included in that tornado watch at this point you're just dealing with standard showers the heavier thunderstorms stretch from pickens county through tuscaloosa county into walker county blount county etowah calhoun and starting to move into cherokee county as well i want to point out there is a severe thunderstorm warning to our west south of philadelphia in really in between philadelphia meridian and mississippi so this stronger thunderstorm will continue moving towards sumter county here and eventually if it holds together would move into greene county hale county potentially tuscaloosa county so we'll keep an eye on that at this point it's a severe thunderstorm there's not a tornado warning is associated with that but that would be our next strong storm that could cross over the border into our state here pretty soon so let's take a look at i'm going to actually take us to the hour by hour here if i can and kind of show you what you can expect through the rest of the evening so right now you're taking a live look from our children's of alabama camera and at this point things are pretty quiet in downtown birmingham seeing a break from that rain but as we look towards that hour by hour there it is this is what we're going to continue to see the trend is going to be that front moves slowly across the state and we're going to see that band of thunderstorms slowly move southeastward so by about 3 a.m that line is south of the city of birmingham stretching through talladega county chilton county perry county and this line will eventually be weakening in the early morning hours as it continues to move southeastward and then tomorrow will begin cloudy and mild with temperatures likely still in the 60s and then our severe threat will be done early tomorrow morning by the time you're headed out to work or school our severe threat is over really our main concern is the next few hours here with that tornado watch lasting through about 1am here is a look at well now they we've updated that severe storm outlook but this is a look at the timing so if you live along the 5920 corridor we are looking at anywhere from now through 3 a.m for that potential of a strong severe storm and then south and east of that anywhere from midnight through 5 a.m we'll keep a close eye on it but we do expect those storms to be weakening as they keep moving south and east here's the latest on that tornado watch so all the counties there in yellow are where we have that watch that does last through 1 a.m and you can tell that many counties across northwest and north alabama have been dropped from that watch as that main line comes through your threat for severe weather will be going away so here is the latest on the radar i actually want to we're on composite radar here i want to go to reflectivity there we go and you can see yes we've got some reds out there we've got quite a bit of heavy rain and as i put the lightning on a lot of lightning with these thunderstorms so it's likely very loud you're hearing a lot of thunder but at this point we do not have any warnings we've got likely some gusty winds moving through aliceville with the purples there that could indicate some very small hail as well and then this line is going to extend into tuscaloosa county into coker just north of downtown tuscaloosa some heavy rain so if you are in the city of tuscaloosa you're likely seeing some lightning in the distance and this line is going to slowly move southward at this point we're just looking at some heavy rain and some thunder there's not a warning with this moving a little bit farther northward we do have indication of some heavier rain falling into portions of walker county and into west jefferson county you can see here that's going to be moving towards oak grove it's going to be moving towards toad vine alliance here pretty soon and it's in the city of west jefferson at this point heavy rain and this keeps moving south and east so eventually this batch here of heavy rain will move towards fultondale which is where we have seen a lot of those reports of damage from that tornado that we were tracking earlier in the evening we've got rain falling over warrior over kimberly over say re as we look a little bit farther northward blount county much of blunt county dealing with rain at this point if you live in locust fort you're hearing some thunder but nothing severe on iana you've got some rain as well moving towards st claire county asheville you're seeing that rain steel you've got heavy rain with some thunder walnut grove in etowah county we've got some thunder there as well and then really a big batch of heavy rain stretching from ohachi up towards portions of cherokee county so if you live near center you've got that heavy rain as well and then a lot of lightning your hoax bluff but at this point the storms are well behaved and we are very thankful for that that these storms at this point are not severe we do hope this trend continues through the rest of the evening but we do have of course that tornado watch which lasts through 1 a.m for the possibility that we do have another warning or to either severe thunderstorm warning can't rule out the possibility of a tornado warning with that tornado watch lasting through 1 a.m taylor so 11 55 let me pick it up here for just a second again we are in a situation where we have no warnings in effect now no warnings we've got thunder lightning gusty winds but storms are under classic severe limits that is we don't have large hail we don't have damaging wind there is a tornado watch until 1 00 a.m for the counties in yellow the concern and the reason we're here is for the damage that has occurred north of birmingham tonight much of fultondale with serious damage and injuries we've had major damage in parts of center point tonight i've not heard of that much damage from areas north and east of there clay chalkville argo into saint claire county in fact i've heard no damage at all in sinclair county so apparently the tornado lifted at some point around center point or between center point maybe in chalkville and to our knowledge there was no damage north and east of there and it's obviously a very chaotic scene and a lot of people are asking questions and i wish i could give you answers and quite frankly nobody has the answers at this point and again i will tell you that homes have collapsed and people are trapped as we speak and we have injuries could there be a fatality or two yes i don't have specifics on that i i've got unconfirmed reports but again we're not in the business of passing along unconfirmed reports i we just have to tell you what we know that is valid uh so again in just a moment we're going to be going live up to uh the northern part of the birmingham metro fultondale specifically uh to take a uh a live view of what's happened up there you've see you've seen some of the images that we've shown you tonight and again a lot of homes are damaged and again there's clearly been reports of damage let me just say this the fultondale fire chief says stay out everybody out of fultondale at this time if you got no business there don't be some bonehead drive in there to get your you know youtube views or whatever please let these first responders do what they're doing they're doing a search and rescue right now this is not a time to be making tick tock or youtube videos just stay out this is from the fultondale fire chief this is not me talking here he wants everybody to stay out of fultondale if you've got no business up in fultondale you need to get out of there and that is from the fultondale fire chief and i will tell you okay let's take it all right let's go let's go live to fultondale right now so again this is the hampton inn and what's amazing at this particular point within that structure i've heard of no injuries again you are looking live at the hampton inn this is a hotel that is at walker chapel road near i-65 it's real close to the lows real close to the whataburger the chick-fil-a and again this is what this tornado has done we don't know the occupancy at this particular hampton how many people were staying there tonight again we just don't know more that there's there's a lot of information we don't have at this point but again i have heard no reports of anybody being injured at that particular hotel again you can hear in the background various first responders coming into this but again let me and i was probably too bold but sometimes you just got to be bold please don't go up there just out of respect for humanity and let these folks do their job understand we've got reports of people that are there's entrapment right now we have injuries and what first responders are doing they're basically doing triage trying to find out you know who's hurt the most getting them to hospitals transporting them they do an unbelievably good job and you can see some of the damage obviously with those water breaks within the building with the water streaming down through here this is going to be a significant tornado we saw debris being lofted at one point to 15 000 feet from this storm the tornado debris signature really started to flare about the time it hit this intersection walker chapel road interstate 65 and uh again uh it's uh this is gonna be very significant the the the you know what's the ef number i don't know now quite frankly that's not important we'll find out tomorrow uh the weather service will get a survey team in there tomorrow and do damage assessment and we'll find out the rating of this tornado but again understand it's not just this spot that's the one thing i want to stress here it's not just this particular spot we have damage in many other parts of fultondale we have damage in parts of center point and there's probably some damage in between these places that we don't even know about at this point and again i will tell you from looking back at the let me just say this uh everybody at the hampton has been accounted for we're seeing reports of that and uh so at this point we're not aware of anybody injured there um but again one of the big problems out on newcastle road uh where we got a house collapse multiple houses have been collapsed and you you got some people that are trapped some of the reports are saying some of those that are trapped they're vocal but they have no way of getting them out oftentimes in an entrapment situation you have to have heavy equipment to get the structures literally off people or get it where they can get out they're bringing in bobcats from other right they're bringing in that heavy equipment which they desperately need and again i will tell you that i have seen multiple credible reports of at least one fatality tonight from this tornado but again some of the heaviest damage is on newcastle road uh which is in the eastern part of uh of fultondale uh tarrant police trying to work their way in on north pine hill road into fultondale to get the people and people are just crying for help it is a very chaotic situation this is a situation where a very significant tornado has come through the communities of fultondale and center point north of birmingham the tornado warning was issued at uh right at 10 35 we were about to go off our 10 o'clock newscast and at that very moment the warning was issued and we stayed with it and we watched that debris being lofted and at night it's so hard we've learned through social science studies that really for people sometimes to take action to believe us they have to see video of a tornado and quite frankly with these rain wrapped tornadoes at night there is absolutely no way that's going to happen and we're just hoping that a lot of people heard the warning and responded you know one of the biggest problems that we've learned is that most people don't get warnings these days because of the siren mentality the notion that you should hear some world war ii air raid siren which have never ever been effective at reaching people inside a home this is why we preach you've got to have a weather radio you've got to have one in your house in your business and to back that up you've got to have your smartphone with wireless emergency alerts and a good app and respond to those warnings know where you're going and we're hoping that a lot of people did hear the warning tonight and responded to the warning but again it's a case where clearly a lot of people have been hurt and again i'm afraid that we might have at least one fatality out in through here multiple agencies are coming in to assist fultondale um because there's so much damage here um some more reports and again you're looking at a hampton inn this is off interstate 65 at walker chapel road and again you can see you've got multiple police units fire units on the scene we understand that everybody at the hotel is accounted for everybody's been accounted for and at this point we've heard of no specific injuries at this point and again it looks like they're coming up on an oh charlie's we'll go back as soon as we can we'll go right back to that nobody wants to see us all they want to see is that so again as soon as we get that shot back hoover police is sending assistance to fultondale we understand tarrant is sending assistance many of the local agencies are sending in assistance to uh help fultondale try and do search and rescue this this is a phase of search and rescue right now because people are entrapped and people are injured now state troopers are involved the aliyah is involved but it sure looks like some of the most significant damage is on newcastle road major structure damage multiple entrapments and people are the the first responders are in there right now trying to help these people and to get them out and it sounds uh like a very challenging situation up in through there um wow i'm gonna pull up a shot here uh this is from john brown uh john of course is one of our legendary uh chasers and john is out uh tonight i want to show an image that john is showing here this is we can take an image on uh x05 please um this is one of the businesses damaged in fultondale and again if hello anybody back there in the back we can take okay we'll fix that real quick thank you jd i just want to show some of these images to let you know what it's like we can take that now there we go uh this is a business that is in fultondale and it's just been totally flattened apparently a towing company i don't want to say the name of it because i'm not 100 sure that's the correct name but again this is what it looks like in fultondale right now and again please i hope that you heard our call from the fultondale fire chief asking people to stay out the best thing you can do is just to stay out of there please do not go in there to get pictures do not go in there to get video to do a tick tock to do any of this stuff don't be some knucklehead and this is one of the biggest problems first responders have nowadays it's it's these cowboys that want to come in there and you know get some youtube views don't do that please have some respect for these people that have lost their homes that have lost everything people that are injured up in through there this is not the time to do that uh we got our live shot back by any chancer we lost that up there okay uh if we you can get that reestablished need to take that just as soon as we can let's go back to the radar quickly just want to show you where we are i wanted to show fultondale because we do have another we do have another line of thunderstorms that will be moving towards the fulton dale area pretty soon some light rain falling in northern fultondale but some heavier rain is on the way this point there's nothing severe with this we do have a lot of lightning with that though and likely you're going to hear some thunder very heavy rain so at this point i know those crews are out there doing those cleanup efforts we will start to see the rain pick up here within the next half hour or so in fultondale but once we make it through this next batch of rain you will be done with the rain for the evening this is going to be that main line that's going to move through and if you live north and west of where this line is your severe threat is going down so your severe threat is coming to an end let's take a look here too where we have some of the heavier rain falling that's moving from pickens county into northern greene county here so also we've got rain about to move into romulus moving through buell moving through coker moving through northern the city of tuscaloosa northern parts of the city of tuscaloosa it stretches towards kellerman and then into toad vine gilmore alliance oak grove with some what appears to potentially be some small hill falling near west jefferson at this point near williamsburg where you're seeing some of those bright bright purples near flat top is where we could see the potential for some small hail but i want to reinforce at this point we do not have any warnings out for our state we do not have any severe thunderstorm warnings we do not have any tornado warnings at this point just some thunderstorms with the possibility of producing some small hail or some gusty winds below severe limits we do have rain falling across much of northern jefferson county near newcastle it is raining at this point near fieldstown it is raining at this point but the city of fultondale at least for the moment you are still dry we are starting to see some indications of potentially some hail falling here just to the south of flattop and that will be moving across 20 i-22 here pretty soon near graysvolt so where you're seeing the black colors there that's indicating the possibility of some hail falling and our hail detector is showing that as well so where we have that pink blob right there which i'm also going to take off this tornado watch in the background the yellow color there we go where we have that pink color that's where we could see some hail falling at this point so we are going to okay we do have a new tornado warning that was just issued for calhoun cherokee cleburne so this is going to be that same likely that same cell that has continued on let's go up so again if you're just joining us live here we're going to be bouncing back between tornado coverage now of real-time weather and what's happened we're going to have to focus on this new tornado warning that has just been issued so again this is a new tornado warning that has just been issued for parts of calhoun cherokee and cleburne counties in northeast alabama the potential tornado is near piedmont piedmont is located right here and again this is going to be at a fairly distant location for multiple radars and this probably gives us our best view so again piedmont is right there my fingers my fingers on piedmont possible tornadic circulation just west of piedmont and again we're going to pop on the polygon here if we can in just a second but the bottom line is everybody in southern cherokee goshen back over to spring garden school the town of piedmont this is all north of jacksonville by the way this is extreme northern calhoun county this has nothing to do with aniston but again there's your polygon piedmont back up the goshen back over to spring garden in the far northern part of cleburne county you've got to be sheltered right now we have a possible tornado and again this is not a classic classic tight circulation but the weather service believes is of course of least regret you better be sheltered so again the call to action right now is for piedmont you've got not much time here if you're in piedmont go to a small room now near the center lowest floor away from windows helmets if you've got them okay go to your shelter we don't want anybody in cars or mobile homes so again this is a tornado warning in effect now for northern calhoun southern cherokee and parts of northern cleburne counties in east alabama this does not include aniston or oxford or jacksonville it's all north of there and again the concern right here is piedmont that's the town of piedmont that's the possible tornadic circulation coming into town right now once that leaves piedmont that's going to be moving up into the far far south eastern tip of cherokee county and again this has nothing to do with weiss lake nothing to do with center or leesburg or cedar bluff or galesville this is all far far south of there down here in this far south eastern tip of cherokee county and the northern tip of cleburne county as well and again there's the southern extent of your polygon right down in through here so again the concern it's going to be from nancy's creek along highway 9 right up into downtown piedmont and up to about goshen and then back over towards spring garden these are places in southern cherokee and northern cleburne counties let's look at the correlation coefficient just to see if we have by chance any debris and we don't at this point so at this point we're not seeing debris being lofted i will say that we are at a great distance from all the radar sites here uh we don't have a really good sampling of the lower levels we can see this from the high top radar from birmingham from atlanta but the radar beam is probably eight nine ten thousand feet off the ground at this point uh and again this is not a really tight tornadic type circulation here but based on the history of what has happened tonight is of course of least regret the weather service is going to have to post a tornado warning here so again this is the town of piedmont right here and that's the largest population center in the path of this possible tornado so everybody in piedmont needs to be sheltered right now and then again up into cherokee county as far north as goshen over here to spring garden school then down into borden springs and northern cleburne county and again this has nothing to do with heflin nothing to do with interstate 20. this is far far north of interstate 20. aniston oxford heflin no problems at all down there this is extreme northern calhoun and again we stress that even jacksonville is not involved in this this is north of jacksonville again that's highway 21 right here this is highway nine right here coming up out of jacksonville and uh down toward uh the the white plains and there's piedmont right there so we've got a possible tornadic circulation basically right on top of piedmont right now so this is a tornado warning in effect for northern calhoun county extreme southern cherokee northern cleburne and again in cherokee county goshen back over to spring garden in cleburne county borden springs this is all north of oak level this is north of grant lee up in the northern part of cleburne county so again that tornadic circulation is on top of piedmont soon it's going to be moving really close to the county line here that separates these two counties this is cherokee county and this is cleburne county right here okay so again we are going to be kind of focusing on this but at the same time understand we've had major damage with major injuries potential loss of life tonight north of birmingham with a violent tornado that came through fultondale and parts of center point there has been some damage in clay in chalkville but the damage does not seem as severe there as it is in fultondale tonight and again we're going to be going to our news crews in just a second but before we do anything we have to be sure that you understand that if you are in piedmont do not get out of your safe place you've got to stay sheltered this won't take long that circulation is going over piedmont right now so again we have a tornadic circulation over piedmont that will be moving to the east very close to the cleburne cherokee county line if you're anywhere near that county line really spring garden or south or maybe north of borden springs in in cleburne county just be aware of that we're starting to see some evidence of lowering here these lowered values of the correlation coefficient that might be the first evidence of some debris that's being lofted here and remember at a great distance from the radar sites we're not going to get a really good sampling of the lowest levels in through here so again we have a tornado warning in effect and this is in effect until 12 45 this morning it's 12 15 right now so about 30 more minutes and again we'll watch to see if this correlates with debris that's being lofted we'll watch for trends if that continues to go negative then that means it is not a hydro meteor it's not hail it's not a raindrop it's not a snowflake it's something else it's boards and bricks and glass and parts of buildings and things like that okay so uh if we can do a double box what i would like to do in the back jd is to double box the live shot from fultondale we have with me with the radar because we have two issues we're dealing with we have major major tornado damage in fultondale and parts of center point we have many houses that have collapsed we have many people that are trapped we have many people that have been injured we don't know the exact information nobody knows right now because first responders are doing a search and rescue so we're going to double box me in one box with this so you can watch the current situation in northeast alabama and the other box so you can watch the damage situation that is north of birmingham and fultondale so in just a second you're going to go to a double box and and we'll do that and i just wanted to show you what's happening in fulton dale as well i can see it here and you'll there we go thank you so again on that one side of the screen this is in fultondale this is a hampton inn that was hit by a violent tornado earlier tonight we understand everybody is accounted for that was at the hotel so at that particular spot there was no injuries but that is the type of damage we are seeing throughout fultondale but again right here we've got this lowered cc which is potential for some debris that's right on top of piedmont this is an amazing product if you watch the correlation coefficient with that tornado that produced the damage you're seeing in the other part of the screen it's darn good but again that circulation is over the city of piedmont moving northeast in about five minutes we can give an all clear to piedmont the best possible case here this thing is aloft it's going aloft over the city and not touching down in the city but we don't know that again the radar beam is probably 8 000 feet off the ground at this point and again that will be moving right over here toward the georgia state line and again these are some of the arrival times i can't quite see those but maybe you can see those at home but these are communities in extreme southern cherokee county and the far northern part of cleburne county off to the east of the city of piedmont and through here so again in just a mere moment we can give a highway 9 all clear not yet but in about five minutes we'll clear highway 9 and points to back to the west uh and again you can see and again i'm not totally sure that's debris being lofted that's a little noisy and that might not be but it's just something we're watching here so the tornado warning in effect for extreme northern calhoun northern cleburne southern cherokee in effect until 12 45 this morning and again we have the possibility of a tornado that's over piedmont moving northeast and again i stress this has nothing to do with aniston oxford or heflin that's all way to the south this has nothing to do with center leesburg sand rock cedar bluff galesville that's far to the north this is for a small area here northern calhoun southern cherokee in northern cleburne and again piedmont is right there where my finger is and that's u.s 278 going over into georgia so that will be in georgia here fairly soon and again in about two minutes i'll give you an all clear for piedmont and points west highway 9 at points west not yet but in a couple of minutes and we hope that there's nothing going on here and again we want you to take these warnings seriously because the double box shows you this is what's happened with these things tonight uh it has been a really rough night for areas north of birmingham specifically fultondale and the parts of center point and then ultimately into parts of clay and chockville it has been a very very rough night tonight we do have a report now of one person trapped on the third floor of that hampton inn so again we have a report and again these are all very credible one report of one person trapped on the third floor of the hampton now it might be powers out and and they they can't get to the stairs or the elevators obviously aren't working in a situation like that but we have so many other agencies that are stepping in to help fultondale coming from different parts of the county um but again the one message that we're trying to give for everybody is to be sure that you don't go up there and again if we can put that if we can i'd like to keep the video if we can okay what we what we're trying to do here i want to let you see it here on television you don't need to drive up there the fulton dale fire chief says don't come up here you're going to totally interfere with everything we're trying to do this is search and rescue this is serious business and so we're just going to stay with these live shots as long as we can they're going to i think reestablish that in just a second but anyway this is our polygon this is for east alabama northeast alabama and to get your bearings straight we have and again that's really not a tornadic signature quite frankly that that is not uh it looked a little better about five minutes ago but now we can give it all clear so highway nine is right here piedmont you're clear all clear you're good if you're in piedmont you can come out of your storm pit you can come out of your safe place take your helmet off you're good so from highway nine back off to the west all clear including the town of piedmont the greatest concern now is going to be along highway 278 which is this road right here coming out of piedmont that runs over into georgia and this is southern cherokee and again places around spring garden borden springs grantly in northern cleburne county so if you're anywhere in this part of the state you need to stay sheltered until the storm moves into georgia or this segment of the storm and again i'll be honest with you that's not a tornado signature right here it's really never looked that good but again the weather service believed based on what this thing has done that it's the right thing to do is to post a warning and i certainly would agree with that so again for a few more minutes we got a tornado warning this is in effect until 12 12 45 45 and it is now 12 21 they'll probably expire that early as this thing moves over into uh georgia so but again we've heard of we stress we've heard of no damage from northern calhoun southern cherokee northern cleburne so far maybe something's happened over there if so we just simply don't know about it but again that's a tornado warning that's in effect for extreme northeast alabama and again as soon as we can get a double box reestablished with uh damage on one side and me like that second line is coming through boltondale at this point yeah let's go back to the reflectivity let's just kind of get a wide view for everybody else and again we stress this is the only warning in effect but yeah this for first responders this is just not good we've got a this is the cold front and we're going to have some really heavy rain out here let's put the lightning on real quick and if we can put the lightning counter on up here too uh yeah there's a lot of lightning 39 strikes here what's the time frame on that taylor is it five minutes i think it's five minutes anyway recently there have been 30 strikes in this area and again some of the most significant damage was right up in through here uh again fultondale newcastle road back over toward pawnee this is pinson valley parkway right here and then back over into center point which is right here this is where we've got this major damage from a major tornado earlier tonight and now we've got this non-severe but still it's got lightning popping like crazy this is 10 minutes by the way okay 10 minutes thank you so uh and that's the right thing to do our people need to be in their car we don't want anybody outside listen lightning is frightening lightning is a killer too and you don't want to be outside during lightning so for the first responders you've got this new line of storms coming into this tornado damaged area in through here this will not last especially long that really heavy rain is probably going to last about 15 minutes and then you go to light rain and then you're done and by the time we get to you know 1 30 a.m it's all going to be over for again this northern part of jefferson county so we just wanted to point that out as taylor said we've got a line of heavy storms not severe heavy storms coming into the tornado damaged area right now that's the reason the live shots have gone down over there if you're in tuscaloosa it's noisy you've got heavy rain coming in but again we stress there's nothing severe happening over here nothing severe at all let's go back to northeast alabama and again the reason that we are here working weather at this point is this tornado warning in effect for the extreme northeastern part of the state this is for northern cleburne southern cherokee in the far far far northeastern corner of calhoun county again piedmont we've given you an all clear this thing rotated the rotating part of the storm went right over the town of piedmont i've heard of no damage hopefully it stayed aloft but again this is the segment where there could be some a small tornado within this rain area so again extreme northeastern calhoun this is for areas east of piedmont southern cherokee spring garden and then down to borden springs in cleburne county this is all far north of interstate 20. let me just say one thing too a lot i've seen a lot of reports of people that said their phones did not sound wireless emergency alerts for some reason we say this over and over the baseline every alabama home has to have a noaa weather radio it has nothing to do with a cell network nothing it is independent and they work well and they will wake you up and you will know when there's a tornado warning every home has to have one every business has to have one noaa noaa weather radio it's a function of the government and they work well the phone that's a secondary way of course if you're out and about it's your primary way but it's not always going to work you've got multiple points of failure here that's why you have to have two ways of hearing warnings and obviously sirens aren't going to work you'll never hear those things in your house during a raging storm so please consider getting a noaa weather radio we've been preaching i've been preaching this for 40 years and i guess i'll have it on my tombstone get a weather radio read the blog all kind of stuff is going to be on my tombstone but please consider getting one that is urgent and you won't miss these i'm afraid a lot of people didn't hear the warning and that's why so many people have died over the years in these warnings they don't hear the warnings they don't know how to get them they think they're going to hear a siren so please consider that but again just very very broad rotation this is not really a tornado signature i would not be shocked if the weather service expires this a little early but technically this warning continues in effect until 12 45 a.m for the next 15-20 minutes but again one way or the other this will be in georgia soon so i think it's going to be cancelled well before 12 45. uh so let's go back to the reflectivity and a big picture if we can uh and again this is going to show the big picture and i'm getting reports of pea-sized hail with this in gardendale this is this is what you're going to see remember to be severe you've got to have one inch diameter hail or larger that's the size of a quarter or 58 mile per hour winds and these storms don't feature that but tuscaloosa just north of birmingham the gadsden this is an advance of a surface cold front right in through here and again you're going to have gusty winds small hail a lot of lightning heavy rain but they're just not severe that's the reason we don't have any warnings in effect for tuscaloosa or jefferson or etowah the only warning in the state is this small tornado warning polygon and again quite frankly that tornado signature has gone away in one way or the other that storm is about to cross over into georgia in just a matter of minutes but let's take a closer look at birmingham and again just wanted to kind of show uh what the first responders are dealing with and i want you to understand that we have a lot of people that are hurt and a lot of people that are trapped we've got search and rescue going on here and this is the last thing you want to see but it happens sometimes in a situation like this we've got torrential rain falling now again this this is where the bulk of the tornado damage has been right in through here okay we got major damage walker chapel road interstate 65 then coming out here on newcastle road back over to pinson valley parkway so they're out here trying to do search and rescue and now they're dealing with this a line of heavy storms again not severe but there's a lot of lightning and you just can't be out there with lightning 47 strikes here in the last 10 minutes in this particular zone here and this is about to come on through birmingham and again we stress with these storms it's not severe but it's going to be loud and noisy and with the tornado damage we have had tonight we just want to give you some level of comfort that there is absolutely no indication of a tornado in through here none whatsoever heavy rain yep lightning yes gusty winds yes small hail yes all that but again damaging wind no large hail no that's the reason we have no warnings at this point and again the guests going to come right through birmingham let's go down to tuscaloosa real quick and it's kind of the same situation down here of course there's been no damage in tuscaloosa we are showing a lot of lightning from our children's alabama camera as well looking north again same thing here heavy rain thunder lightning small hail gusty winds not severe yeah taylor take that sky cam real quick and talk about it yeah let's take a look at that it is we've seen quite a few cloud to ground strikes within the last few minutes so we are looking northward we're looking over downtown birmingham this is going to be on top of the children's of alabama our children's of alabama building here but you can see pretty much constant lightning if you look carefully into the horizon and there are times when this can this camera is completely lit up there with with lightning and that is going to be those thunderstorms we're just looking at they are moving through the fultondale area and those are drifting slowly southward so that is going to be impacting birmingham here pretty soon so we will see that rain pick up but quite a few lightning strikes and i've actually seen some reports on social media just different people sending in videos and pictures of all the lightning that is out there right now so there you go you can see one of those flashes on that screen looks like we are losing our kind of one out of focus there for a second but you can get the general idea yes a lot of lightning with these thunderstorms a lot of thunder loud but at this point we are not looking at severe weather moving into downtown birmingham we will have to monitor these storms we do still have that uh tornado watch that lasts through 1 a.m i'm going to go back to the radar here and just kind of show you what exactly we're looking at there so as i move that radar towards downtown birmingham you can see that line of heavy rain with all that lightning is just north of the city heaviest rain still falling over fultondale but it does look like hopefully here pretty soon that heaviest rain will move south of your area and it'll bring with it that lightning and eventually we will see improving conditions in the city of fultondale here within the next half hour or so we're getting a new radar scan in there and you can see yes that rain continues to move southward you're hearing some sounds it's different notifications that i'm getting here on my computer and we have a new notification that the tornado watch has they've canceled the watch for a whole bunch of counties yeah wow which makes sense um but pull up that watch box let's show taylor the counties that have been cleared now again the chance of additional severe weather is kind of fading pretty quick it might take a minute for it to come up on here i know for sure yeah in a minute you'll see some of these counties going away and again we stress the only warning we got is this and again there's no evidence of a tornado in here now this is extreme northern cleburne southeastern cherokee it's just broad rotation about to move into georgia and that's the reason we've not been on it here for the last few minutes and again we're back to a double box now we have reestablished video coming from fultondale and it's pouring rain and again this is coming from inside one of our news vehicles where they're safe there's lightning there's thunder and it is a nightmare they're doing search and rescue in this driving rain people are still trapped in some houses out there we know that and again it's just a bad situation the weather will improve they're dealing with this right here is what you're seeing in the other box right there in fultondale and again the weather will improve out there in the next 15 minutes or so but it's just rough right now it is a driving rain with thunder and lightning popping everywhere and that's the reason everybody's back in their vehicles uh but it's uh it's very very very rough up there and again we stress and this is coming from multiple agencies just got a note from the ema jefferson county ema asking people to please avoid fultondale please avoid center point don't go up there with your camera and you know trying to get youtube videos please don't do that you know this is when the first responders need to do their work and i'll just leave it at that i mean there's only so many times we can say that some people don't care which is the sad state of society today but please let them do their work and don't interfere by going up there trying to shoot tick-tock videos okay and again this line will be coming through birmingham and again as it comes through birmingham and tuscaloosa it's coming through gadsden now it's going to be loud it's going to be noisy you'll hear thunder you'll have gusty winds but again we stress that at this point there's nothing severe and the warning has just been canceled for calhoun cherokee and cleburne so the tornado warning has been canceled that's off the board the counties that were cleared are fayette pickens and walker so the severe weather threat has ended for pickens fayette walker coleman morgan and then counties back to the north and west the tornado watch has been canceled there in these other counties the watch goes until one i do not expect the weather service to extend that the storm prediction center is the risk of additional severe storms after one it's low not zero but fairly low but again that's your activity on the cold front coming through roughly along interstate 59 right now and again we stress that tornado warning that was in effect for southern cherokee northern cleburne canceled there's been nothing there for the last 15 minutes or so in terms of any danger

Channel: ABC 33/40 Weather

Views: 129,919

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

Id: toDfFOf9-Mk

Length: 119min 57sec (7197 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 26 2021