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| Tornado destruction in Lee County, Alabama Sunday. Photo by WKRG-TV via AP. |
Reports are still a little confused, but at this point it appears all of the deaths occurred in the town of Beauregard in Lee County, Alabama.
This suggests, like in Moore, all the deaths were from a single tornado. Some of the deaths from Sunday included children. Dozens of people were injured, some severely.
In all of 2018, there were only 10 deaths nationwide from tornadoes, the lowest number in history. So, in a matter of minutes in just one town Sunday, there were more than twice as many deaths from tornadoes than all of last year. Our lucky streak with twisters is tragically over. (There was another death from a tornado in the South last month.)
In all, there were 39 reports of tornadoes in the Southeast yesterday, though that number will change as damage is assessed and meteorologists figure out which damage was caused by tornadoes and which destruction was caused by straight line winds.
As high as Sunday's death toll was, I'm sure it would have been worse if not for excellent forecasting and warnings from the National Weather Service.
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| A large cell tower fell across this highway in Alabama during Sunday's tornadoes. |
Lee County was among the areas known to be at highest risk of tornadoes yesterday. The tornado struck the county at around 2:20 p.m. Sunday.
At 1 p.m., the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma put out a statement saying a supercell thunderstorm east of Montgomery, Alabama was heading into a zone very favorable for tornadoes and warned a strong tornado in or near Lee County was a good possibility within 30 to 60 minutes. This is well before there was any sign of an actual tornado..
At 1:58 p.m., the National Weather Service office in Birmingham, Alabama issued a tornado warning that included Lee County. At 2:09 p.m., that office upgraded the warning to a tornado emergency, which signaled to people this is a very big, serious deal. Then the tornado roared through the area about 2:20 to 2:30 p.m.
That is as good a series of warnings as humanly possible.
Another thing to note: I don't know if this happened or not, but if people were looking for visual confirmation of the tornado as it approached, they might have been caught unprotected until it was too late. Like many tornadoes, especially in the Southeast, this one was wrapped in rain, and hard to see.
Plus, again like many strong tornadoes, this to the naked eye didn't have classic funnel shape, but looked like a mass of angry black clouds. There's the potential to underestimate things when they look like that.
However, my guess is most people who died were actually sheltering in places like closets and bathtubs, but the tornado was so strong those protections were not enough.
There's no doubt the tornado was powerful. There's one report that a sign from a billboard was blown nearly 20 miles from its starting point.
There were plenty of other tornadoes or storms that looked like they would produce tornadoes. At one point, I counted a dozen simultaneous tornado warnings in central and southern Georgia. It's amazing the National Weather Service was able to keep track of them all.
On the negative side, there were dozens of posts on social media complaining all those warnings were interrupting coverage of a golf tournament on TV. So I guess to some people, a few tornado deaths are worth it, if one gets to enjoy a televised golf tournament.
This tornado outbreak is over. However, the current weather pattern favors more severe weather and tornadoes. The next chance is this coming weekend, probably in the southern Plains, lower Mississippi Valley and maybe the Gulf Coast states.
I'm guessing that round of severe weather won't be as bad as what happened Sunday, but you never know.
Next up, videos. Here's a storm chaser's encounter with the Lee County monster tornado:
Here's raw video of the utter destruction, and the search for victims:
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