Rain Sleet and Snow coming to Alabama and Georgia March 21-22 2013

A chance for wintery weather in the deep south will be coming in Thursday night into Friday morning. Get your cameras ready haha.

Best area for accumulation will be in the norther areas of Alabama and Georgia. There is likely to be no accumulation except on elevated and grassy areas in the central areas of both states as surface temperatures will be to warm.

In areas it will begin as a rain sleet mix and may change to snow briefly. In others areas it may begin as a sleet snow mix and change to all snow. Best time of this, from west to east will be between 3 AM and 10 Am Friday morning.

Confirmed Tornado Lee County Alabama on May 13 2012

The weather for Sunday May 13 2012 was not unexpected. However, being the weekend, there was not much coverage. You know how local TV stations are on weekends, nothing until the evening news, unless there is a weather warning of some type. For a full rundown on the lack of weather news that day, see here – Well, that was interesting..storms on May 13 2012..Only Human

On with the Tornado in Lee County Alabama report …

This was not a classic tornado, nor was it strong and long lived. It was what many in weather refer to as a ‘quick spin up’. Most tornadoes of this type occur due to an increasing unstable atmosphere in or around a strong thunderstorm. This is why you should take a ‘severe thunderstorm warning’ just as serious as a Tornado Warning, as many times a tornado can spin up. Another reason is because severe thunderstorms are capable of causing damage equal to small tornadoes such as the one here in Lee county due to straight line winds.

The funny thing about this Tornado, the Tornadic winds estimated in the official assessment below barely met criteria for a Severe Thunderstorm. That being winds of at least 58 mph (50 knots).

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BIRMINGHAM AL
109 PM CDT MON MAY 14 2012

0202 PM CDT TORNADO 2 SSW ROXANA 32.66N 85.69W
05/13/2012 F0 LEE AL EMERGENCY MNGR

THE TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN JUST WEST OF COUNTY ROAD 217 AND CROSSED THE ROAD WHERE IT DID DAMAGE TO TREE BRANCHES INCLUDING ONE DOWNED TREE BRANCH. THE TORNADO CONTINUED 2.1 MILES TO THE NORTHEAST AND CROSSED COUNTY ROAD 66 WHERE IT SNAPPED ONE SMALL PINE TREE BEFORE DISSIPATING. THIS EF-0 TORNADO HAD MAXIMUM WINDS OF 50 TO 60 MPH WITH A PATH WIDTH OF 50 YARDS.

Here’s a Radar storm-relative velocity capture I took at 3:09 EDT / 2:09 CDT while watching the storm:

Here are a couple maps of the area. The first showing a wide view of the area with landmarks, and the second zoomed in.

Well, that was interesting..storms on May 13 2012..Only Human

A dry slot worked into the area allowing sunshine to peek out, heat up, and destabilize the area.

On Sunday May 13 2012 I was lazing around, just taking it easy. I wasn’t expecting any strong storms after looking at computer models / data in the early morning hours. Scratch that, I was expecting some, possibly severe, but that was for the overnight hours of Saturday May 12 into the early morning hours of Sunday May 13. Not Sunday afternoon and evening !!!

In case you couldn’t read the above, this is the pertinent part, myself talking about storm potential on Saturday May 12 at 2:44 PM EDT:

As far as anything bad …. Later tonight there appears to be a chance of some stronger storms, judging by wind profiles. The problem with this is, it is hard to pin down an exact area as this will be Isolated events, not widespread. Hopefully the band of rain that came through this morning and the one headed our way in the next hour will keep the local area more stable later, due to limited heating from cloud cover.

After the storms failed to materialize Saturday night, early Sunday morning, I figured the atmosphere was stable and would remain so as clouds and rain were in the forecast. I feel kinda bad that I didn’t look at models / data Sunday morning sometime and pick up on this. I kinda feel a little better knowing even the Pro’s missed it as well, locally and government. Well sorta with the gov as the Storm Prediction Center did mention a Tornado or two in their update at 0748 AM CDT SUN MAY 13 2012, but not earlier.

As a matter of fact, this is what the SPC said Earlier at 1211 AM CDT SUN MAY 13 2012, which was the last I looked at from them.:

FL PANHANDLE INTO ERN TN…

UPPER VORT MAX IS SHEARING ENEWD ACROSS CNTRL MS EARLY THIS MORNING AND SHOULD PROGRESS ACROSS AL INTO NRN GA BY 18Z. IN THE WAKE OF THIS FEATURE A LONGER WAVE TROUGH WILL LAG ACROSS THE LOWER MS VALLEY. WIDESPREAD EARLY MORNING SHOWERS/TSTMS AHEAD OF UPPER VORT SHOULD LIMIT BOUNDARY LAYER HEATING AND PREVENT SIGNIFICANT DESTABILIZATION/STEEPENING OF LOW LEVEL LAPSE RATES. GIVEN THE MODEST DEEP LAYER SHEAR ACROSS THIS REGION THE LACK OF MEANINGFUL INSTABILITY WILL PRECLUDE MORE THAN A 5% RISK OF MARGINALLY SEVERE WIND GUSTS.

This is from one of the local TV stations weather Facebook page, posted Sunday May 13 2012 at 12:59 PM EDT ..

As we talked about yesterday we would see “Periods” of rain on our Sunday. It may be dry where you live right now, but another round is moving through right now.

This is from the other local TV station Facebook page, posted May 13 2012 at 7:19 AM EDT ..

interactive weather clearly shows rainfall tapering off west to east. We still will see afternoon showers and thunderstorms. Nothing severe, this is the good news. The primary threat will be the advancing front, with the surface low later this afternoon and tonight. A few of these storms will likely produce strong winds.

For the most part the local area did NOT see any severe weather, but it was all around us. As close as Lee, Chambers and Tallapoosa counties in Alabama just across the Chattahoochee river, Tornado Warning. It is considered the local area. We also had a Flash Flood Warning issued that lasted about 4 hours for Muscogee and Harris counties, due to heavy heavy rain. I live in Harris county.

Here’s a graphic showing the warnings on Sunday:

OK, enough of this .. we all make mistakes .. on with the show. Here’s some pics of storms in the area.

This is from Brandon Thomas down in Barbour county Alabama. He decided to go chase the storms moving through his area. Here is his description; “Brief funnel as the wall cloud began emerging over the lake. — in Eufaula, Alabama.”

And another form Brandon, description – “Wall cloud over the lake with RFD cut to the left. — in Eufaula, Alabama.”

One more from Brandon – “Slowly rotating wall cloud with inflow tail forming.
— in Eufaula, Alabama.”

This one is from Cody Nickel, a student at Mississippi State University majoring in Meteorology, while home on break. He was looking west toward Alabama from an upper floor window at the medical center in downtown Columbus Georgia.

Here’s one showing street flooding in Columbus from Belinda Brewer. We had copious amounts of rain. Here at the homestead I recorded 2.83 inches on Sunday.