Deadly Tornado Devastation on Southern End of Winter Storm in Alabama, Georgia, Florida and South Carolina. Yes it Snowed in NY & Boston. The Two Faces of Winter. At least 23 People Dead Still Many Missing.

Picture comes from the link below.

Please read the article.

https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2019-03-03/the-latest-official-2-dead-many-hurt-in-apparent-tornado

Today is a humbling day in the weather community that understands the destruction that occurred late yesterday as too many tornadoes to count sliced across the Southern landscape clearing subdivisions, government buildings and turning forests to stubble amidst the rubble. Some got lucky and survived even though their homes were destroyed, some got even luckier and the tornadoes missed their homes or they had what looks today as if it's only minor damage. Tornado damage is random in that it skips one house or block and dead on destroys the next block. And the tornadoes that started in Alabama moved through North Florida, Georgia and into South Carolina before finally fading away.

Today is about search and rescue as they are using drones that can sense heat signatures in the rubble to search for people still alive. Amazing new trick we have to save people who without medical help will die underneath rubble that once may have been their home. There are still people missing across the many towns these tornadoes tramped upon and so any death total you see is liable to climb and remember there are many people in hospitals where doctors and nurses are working to save their lives. It was mentioned several hospitals in the area had cancelled all elective surgeries for today as their operating rooms are filled with survivors as they try to keep those people alive.

Posting this above from the link below because....

I want you to see the variety of structures destroyed.

https://fox13now.com/2019/03/04/at-least-23-dead-after-tornadoes-touch-down-in-alabama-and-georgia/

Yes there were tornadoes and small homes, but there were large structures including an apartment building razed to the ground as were areas of trees ripped from the ground. This is damage you would see from more than a EF-3 I believe but that's for the NWS to decide. The quality of home construction is always taken into effect and these small towns were small towns that pepper the countryside where people live, work and are very much the backbone of America. The rural Deep South can be a beautiful place to live, friendly people and a sense of community but the homes are not the newest but they are homes never the less ... at least until a random tornado rips it from it's base leaving only the platform it was built on once upon a time.

This area is prone to tornadoes even though it's not what we consider tornado alley, but we barely began severe weather season before Mother Nature dumped a basket of curve balls down onto a region that usually worries on hurricanes and some of these towns did indeed suffer from both Hurricane Michael and Hurricane Florence.

Except for the curve of the cone like area.

You can see that many of the towns in Michael's cone.

Were under the threat from tornadoes yesterday.

The whole storm system traced the track of Michael...

Well after it moved East out of Alabama where it began.

That's simply heartbreaking.

There's a pattern there I'm not happy about...

... as we move closer to hurricane season.

That part of of the GOM is prone to early season storms.

Severe Weather in the Spring.

Tropical Storms a few months later.

The signature of the lightning below tells the story.

That site sounded like a Geiger Counter last night.

And to add to the denial perhaps yesterday was...

..a quiet 2018 where few tornadoes happened.

I find it hard to believe that some of those last night were not EF-4

But my expertise is in hurricanes not tornadoes.

Tornadoes scare me in ways hurricanes do not.

Hurricanes give you more time to prepare.

Their intensity usually not as strong as tornadoes.

Easier to fly out of an area or drive.

Or hunker down in a strong structure.

The tornado that hit Cairo encompassed the whole town.

At least on radar. 

Meteorologists immediately remember other tornadoes.

Other towns slammed by tornadoes.

It's how we think.

We connect the dots.

And that was hard for many of us online last night...

...watching in real time and knowing the weight of the reality.

Knowing what we would see in the morning.

Knowing the death toll would climb.

Knowing whole small towns may have been destroyed.

A sign was blown 20 miles away.

A rather large sign flew 20 miles away.

And as Reed Timmer said last night people need our help.

The study of meteorology is awesome.

But severe weather kills.

Hurricanes kill.

We study them and try to get better at what we do.

We learn from chasers, from drone footage and computer models.

We learn in real time.

And the goal is to give more lead time in prediction.

Getting the word out is difficult.

There is so much "noise" online in social media.

On Air Mets have very little time to get the message out on air.

You have to sift through and filter out the noise.

The NWS does not get the on air play the NHC does.

It's always been upsetting to me.

And lastly there was so much hype on who gets snow.

There is a big difference between EPIC snow and snow.

Regular old fashioned wintry snow and slush.

We had spoken on the trouble in the South with severe weather and possible tornadoes being followed by an Arctic Cold BLAST of low temperatures on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and this was the first of three storm systems forecast to blast their way across the USA in March. So not going to tell you that yes it finally snowed in Boston and that parts of NYC got slushy snow because well it's early March and it's winter and that's normal. While it's not uncommon for Alabama or Georgia to see a tornado it is not common to have a system this large, this strong decimate multiple cities across a large swath of the USA so not going to go long on the snow today.

Yes, there are chances for flakes in North Carolina and yes I will be happy if I see them. This was a wicked system filled with surprises and I tend to think it will keep on surprising as will the next and the one after that. November was cold, December was normal, February was warm and March is forecast to be cold.

What I will do is ask you to donate to charities you know are reliable such as the Red Cross or a local Church or Synagogue or Community Organization that has a good record of providing relief to people who need in times of disaster. It's easy for me to put a link to the Red Cross so I do.

www.redcross.org

And lastly I don't care what time of year it is or how nice the weather was last month or how lucky you have been avoiding a direct hit by a tornado or a hurricane. Know that wherever you live there are dangers that can happen and sometimes the earth can shake, rattle and roll as well. Learn how to prepare as best as you can for these things and without scaring your children teach them well.

More later today as details come in but when the Sheriff of a town says it looks as if someone took a knife and just cleared everything in it's path... you know it's bad and the news and death toll may climb as the hours of today move on.

Besos BobbiStorm
@bobbistorm on Twitter and Instagram

Ps Not going to post a song today. Carrie Underwood and Little Big Town do come to mind but going to post a video on how to survive a Tornado. This week in North Carolina is Preparation Week as March 1st is usually the start of the Severe Weather Season. Knowledge is power. Learn and do what you can to teach those you love how to survive severe weather when it comes calling.

UPDATED!! Alberto Reforming .. NNE @ 13 MPH... New Center, Similar Track, Florida Under the Gun from Alberto's Weather. Mobile Bay to Panama City Who Get's Landfall. The Problem with Not Photogenic Subtropical Cyclones. Will Alberto Transform to Tropical?

Alberto. 

Still 40 MPH.

Moving NNE at 13 MPH.

Forecast Discussion.

Forecaster Beven explains NNE ....

Alberto has the typical atypical Subtropical Storm signature of asymmetrical signature. The reason Alberto looks like this is it is dealing with shear and dry air coming in from the West as expected blowing the his massive amount of convection off to the East over Florida. He also reformed over night over one of his other centers we spoke about and though not totally reformed he is moving North towards a targeted spot somewhere between the North Central Gulf Coast and the Florida Panhandle. The reason it's hard to pinpoint the spot totally is that the reformation of the center throws off previous model plots and now rather than going North off the Yucatan there was a shift to the right that for now pulls the track to the right a drop. However, the hook to the left before landfall is still supposed to occur. You can see the closed center of Alberto on the Earthnull site however it's hard to see on visible imagery. The appearance has gotten a bit better throughout the day and perhaps the morning's first good visible image may show the center better. Or Alberto will stay this way for a while as many Gulf of Mexico hybrid sort of storms do that do not conform to the perfect definition of a cyclone but the NHC a while back opened the door to naming and giving advisories to these types of systems and that is where we are today. It's not a bad place to be, it's gives the public the most amount of information in advance about the dangers from an approaching storm with strong wind, waves, rainfall and all the other types of action a storm of this sort brings with it. And, often even the messiest storms like this do find a sweet spot to wrap up close to shore so it's important to pay attention no matter what name is used to describe it or what flag it is flying so to speak. I'm just referring to it now as Alberto.

This is a good graphic from the NHC.

Shows the area where weather could be.

Rains and associated flooding.

Your typical "CONE" 

But the cone follows the center.

Subtropical Storms have weather far from the center.

So it's a good map but a bit useless.

Well unless you are at landfall.

Mobile Bay to Panama City be warned.

My favorite map.

The old "Navy" map.

Note the grid is wider.

Circles show were TS force winds could happen.

I prefer people look at this map as if you are in Tampa or Naples looking at the regular NHC Cone it would give the appearance you don't have much to worry about other than rain. Wrong... strong weather is associated with these storms and this storm in particular has "JUMPED" rather than moved as it relocated under an additional center. It did it once, it could do it again as it struggles to survive it's battle with unrelenting shear and dry air. Models are shown below. Also if you are not now on Twitter but want to dip you toes in the water you may want to check out the Twitter feed Mike provides on www.spaghettimodels.com down towards the bottom left and you may want to rethink whether you want to be on Twitter. There is much useful, timely information there. The Tweet I'm showing is from Cranky who I sometimes refer to in my mind as CW who has an awesome brain and amazing handle on how weather works and does a good job of explaining it on Twitter with both words and maps.

I'm going to update this blog later this evening with the newest information. I'm going to write a post also that mostly shows some Hurricane History with both May/June storms in this region and also the hard to understand and not very photogenic Subtropical Storms that form in the Gulf of Mexico often early in the year or late in the year. Earl from 1998 comes to mind as does Colin just a few years ago.

Colin

Alberto

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter

Ps ... Viewers of my blog from a long time back know that in the past I have ranted and raved about how stupid it was to name some amorphous looking storm a Tropical Storm or Subtropical and also complained when they did not upgrade a great looking Disturbance to a Tropical Storm. I've seen a a "Tropical Disturbance" slam into Hispaniola with flooding rains and it looked way better than Alberto and didn't get a name. The truth is it is what it is and I'm just going with it this time. There is a center there even though it's overall appearance is more disheveled than some guy who had been out all night drinking and took the Uber home not cause he was being "good" but because he couldn't find his car in the bar parking lot. It is what it is. The truth is it is Memorial Day Weekend and some people really can be dumb as $hit and that is sad but true and better they be warned than be taken by surprise because Alberto didn't get his act together until just before landfall. If you look carefully both at the satellite image (that shows a naked swirl) and Earthnull there is something there. It is what it is and I'd rather people be warned. 

My youngest son was at the Air and Sea Show in Miami that went on under gray skies from the wet sand, rain coming and going. It's a big event and today it went on despite the Florida State of Emergencies and Alberto going to rehab promising to reform.  It is what it is.