F-5

Is that an industrial area the Alexandria storm is approaching right now?  That would be bad.

Hopefully the cell SW of Alexandria will cycle, looks like it's trying to, but Google earth shows the areas just north of Alexandria are fairly well populated and this looks to go right over them in about 30 minutes or so.

Making a run for storm of the year.

Chopper cam picked up the tornado briefly.  It was huge.

cc drop very evident.  Chopper cam picking up power flashes.  Eudora, KS pop 6,100.

https://www.kmbc.com/nowcast

Tornado Emergency issued

14 minutes ago, Crazieman said:

SPC calling moderate risk again, TX panhandle and far western OK.

Upgrade for hailers, kept the 10% hatched for tornadoes.

2 minutes ago, mob1 said:

The cell east of Lebanon has some extremely strong rotation, it's very likely producing but seems to be in a rural area. 

Waynesville and Ft. Leonard Wood in the path.  That cell is very ominous looking.  Would be shocked if something is not on the ground.

Confirmed tornado on that cell.

guy on KRCG just said 'catastrophic damage' in Jefferson City.

Taken with grain of salt....for now.

Any ground truth tornado reports from Jefferson City proper?  SRV out of KLSX really ticked up as it passed 

Whatever was down, and it appears it was down, went right through the middle of Jefferson City.

Wish they had adjusted that initial polygon further north sooner....hope folks weren't caught off guard.

Tornado Emergency now

Lots of neighborhoods in that area.  Interesting this is the first update that included Jefferson City in the warning.  Not sure why that was the case.

Best view out of St Louis radar for now.  That cc drop was huge.

Reflectivity intensifying as the storm approaches Jefferson City.  KEAX showing some pretty good velocity sigs as well...

Cole Co. MO storm riding the north side of the polygon....may go directly into Jefferson City.  So hard to tell from SRV what's really going on.

If one had to sum up the 2018 severe weather season so far they couldn’t do any better than this mornings 13z tornado probs outlook.

Question. What made you drive north? Given that the cell you mentioned was moving northeast (if memory serves), shouldn't one be driving south or southeast?

If the circulation got stronger there was a chance of a southward jog (right turn). Northwest is technically the direction I headed if you look at a google map of highway 280. Not a single cell all day had taken a due north jog, but even if it had, chances are very high it would have been cycling at that point and the tornado threat greatly diminished.

I'll put in my two cents here.....I live in the southern part of Birmingham and I am weather literate. I knew far in advance that any tornado that formed yesterday had the potential to do incredible damage. Even though I live in a well-built brick home with a basement, my policy on days like yesterday is to get the hell out of dodge if a strong circulation is coming my way and maintains a good radar sig for several scans. Right after 7pm, after the monster had roared through town, a tornado was spotted on the ground about 30 miles from me and heading my way. My house was in the center of the warning cone. A tornado emergency had been issued by BMX. I got the kids in the car and went 3-4 miles north on Hwy 280 towards Birmingham to achieve what I knew was a safe distance. Hwy 280 is the busiest road in the state and it was virtually deserted. We drove at a safe speed, obeyed traffic laws and had no problem getting to safe ground.

I would do it again every time.

However, if James Spann had told people to do exactly what I knew to do, the roads would have clogged immediately and thousands of people would have been exposed to grave danger. We need to separate what is common sense to weather savvy folks from what would cause the general public to panic.

Finally touched base with my employee who was in the path of the Birmingham tornado. Says it came within half a mile of them. In his words, "Fultondale has been leveled." Take that for what it's worth, but even after hours and hours of non-stop storm coverage from local TV media, not a lot of information or post-storm footage has really come out of the affected areas. That could be a very bad sign.

Easily the most unnerving thing about the day for me was seeing random leaves falling from high out of the sky on at least 3 different occasions over the course of a couple of hours with no storm within 25 miles of me. Here in the southern suburbs of Birmingham we barely even had any rain at all. Just updated the Alabama death toll to 64.

Looks like Sunny Side, GA took a direct hit.

The morning storms absolutely helped create the problems. It caused the most widespread damage I have seen in 10 years of living in Birmingham. No doubt there were numerous F0-F1 tornadoes this morning that caused damage in addition to the straight line winds. We finally got power on around midday but not everyone did. The warning siren systems down here are as good as anyone's. That would not be an issue on a normal day.

-Just saw a convoy of national guard vehicles heading into Birmingham