The first forecast for severe weather potential in Alabama and adjacent states was issued 4 days before it hit. As is always the case the forecast honed in with more specifics with each passing day leading to eventual Tornado Watches and Warnings. This cold snap was forecast more than a week in advance.
Sometimes a tornado is just so strong nothing can stand up to its wind, other times they strike more vulnerable areas full of trailer parks with mobile homes. A mobile home is simply unsafe in even the weakest tornado. They can be unsafe even against straight-line severe thunderstorm winds.
The official warning advice for a tornado warning in a mobile home is to abandon it for a more substantial building or designated shelter area if there is one, or to lie down in a ditch. The same applies to being in a car or truck.
I explained in my blog and tweets of the past few days the type of event that was expected.
But in the strongest tornadoes if they hit communities with few shelters and few below-ground basements the odds of people dying is high.
Being North of the low pressure system and its attendant warm front put most of Atlanta in the cooler more stable air in a “sort of” wedge (CAD) type situation shielding us from the worst storms thankfully.
Rotating storms were weaker in the Atlanta Metro area:
Radar shot below shows debris falling out of storm around town of Lumpkin, GA while strong rotation heads toward Weston, Georgia:
Juxtaposing rotation tracks and housing data on maps reveals heavy mobile park population, courtesy Professor Stephen Strader of Villanova University:
[ More on funded research on tornadoes in the Southeast here. ]
[ In-depth report on Mobile Homes and tornadoes here. ]
Follow me on Twitter @MellishMeterWSB.