Alberto Update: Two Journalists Die Covering Storm

Alberto over Alabama Tuesday morning.  

Once-Subtropical Alberta, which moved inland yesterday, is still prompting widespread flood alerts and watches and warnings as it slowly moves north toward the Midwest.

Tragically, two journalists in North Carolina died while covering the storm.  A tree fell on a vehicle as WYFF anchor Mike McCormick and photojournalist Aaron Smeltzer covered heavy rains and potential flooding.

The danger from Alberto is from flooding, and the area at risk is pretty widespread. The tragedy in North Carolina was one example of this.

As Alberto made landfall along the Florida Panhandle Monday, a wide fetch of tropical moisture associated with the storm flowed into areas as far away as the Carolinas.

That's why McCormick and Smeltzer were covering the storm. Flood watches and flash flood warnings were in effect Monday in the Carolinas.

This morning, flash flood warnings were up for areas of Alabama, including the Tuscaloosa area. Flash flood watches are up today for a wide area of the Southeast, as they were yesterday. Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky are some of the areas under threat from the flooding today.

The remnants of Alberto will make their way up toward Michigan by Thursday and on up into Canada Friday. Heavy downpours are possible along the storm's path, but I don't expect huge, widespread floods.

Tornado over Colorado Tuesday.
Photo by Daniel Shaw, via Twitter
@DanielShawAU

TROUBLE ELSEWHERE

Monday was quite an active severe weather day in much of the country. It was one of the busiest days of the year for tornadoes, with at least 19 reported. Most of them were in Colorado, but there were a few others in Iowa, Kansas and Utah.

Luckily, most of the tornadoes were in open country and caused relatively little damage.

Today, most of the severe weather, including some risk of tornadoes, heads mostly to central and western Kansas and parts of Oklahoma. Minnesota looks like it will have some strong storms today, too.

The always entertaining and expert photojournalist/stormchaser Pecos Hank captured some of the tornadoes in Colorado Monday, including two that were spinning simultaneously: