Deadly tornadoes on March 31st / April 1st
Posted by Chris in Tampa on 4/1/2023, 2:22 pm
One of the tornadoes overnight passed very close to my aunt's house north of Waynesboro, TN. After 12 hours I finally was able to contact one of her sons on Facebook and he called to let us know. (Phone service was terrible in the area. And internet was down for another family member.) He had went to see if she was okay. No damage apparently, just no power. She's very lucky.

When logged in to Facebook, the video in this Facebook comment that someone posted is very near my aunt's house:

https://www.facebook.com/samantha.campbell.142/posts/pfbid02DFY8b2DzVdkPgSc95U5Thi3FZdDxmGirv3LFEDFfP4DesFSxAZpMR6ec3LcWeYmul?comment_id=583358093781739

At the end of the video, on the other side of that hill, about 0.9 miles from where the video is taken, is where my aunt's house is. Maybe 0.5 miles or less from the damage. The pictures I think are further along that road, but I couldn't find exactly where. Until we heard she was okay, I was looking at damage pictures to try to see how bad it might have been where she was. I never could figure out how to sort Facebook posts by date. I could view just posts and view recent ones, but didn't seem to have a sort like Twitter.

Quick rant: I hate the enhanced NWS radar display. (https://radar.weather.gov/) It was just being problematic for me last night. Warnings might not appear until the next radar scan. Warnings were issued and it took minutes for them to appear on the display, even when reloading. (For a point forecast when viewing your weather, warnings are immediate when you enter your zip code: https://www.weather.gov/) And it was jumpy. I would like to view radar velocity too on a display that isn't as annoying as that one. I really miss Weather Underground's radar maps. Nothing free matches what they used to have.

I tried calling her in the middle of the night to warn her, but I must have waited too late because she didn't answer. I think the power had already been knocked out ahead of the tornado. (The landline might have been taken out by wind, but if not people should have a phone that can work without power if you have a landline and power goes out.)

I did use the rotation option on the MRMS display. (https://mrms.nssl.noaa.gov/qvs/product_viewer/) In deciding whether to call, and who to call, I looked at the long track early on and could see it was going to be very close. I wish I had tried calling a little earlier though. I have family that also lives in the city of Waynesboro and I knew it was likely to pass north of them.

I was watching various streams and looking at radar data at the time. In what is rather unusual, the local area has its very own weather network, with even its own radars. It started several years ago.

https://www.facebook.com/tnvalleyweather

They even had a webcam of the tornado at the time:

40 minutes into the live stream they had here:

https://www.facebook.com/tnvalleyweather/videos/1399087407512736

You could only see it very briefly at times with lightning.

On the streams I was watching, including from TV stations out of Nashville, multiple ones recommended calling people to wake them up in case they weren't aware of the storms.



Tennessee had a lot of damage. Here is a helicopter view:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=185492860937576

And that doesn't include where my aunt lives or two counties west where at least 7 people died from a tornado.
11
In this thread:
Dangerous weather in Mississippi Friday (March 24th) evening - Chris in Tampa, 3/24/2023, 10:06 pm
< Return to the front page of the: message board | monthly archive this page is in
Post A Reply
This thread has been archived and can no longer receive replies.