still here

Despite the generally shitty weather in North Alabama over the weekend, the Oubliette and it's occupants are still kicking. Or napping or swimming, depending on the species.

Storm total for the area: 2 confirmed tornado touchdowns within about 40 miles of Huntsville Friday afternoon/evening. No major damage, no injuries that I'm aware of. Here at Chez Oubliette, we managed to avoid the worst of the weather on Friday. Yes, I did watch a supercell form over the house and start to rotate, but no funnel cloud/tornado formed. Friday was all isolated supercell storms, not a line. For those of you who aren't into meterology, isolated storms are generally more violent and unpredictable than a line of storms ahead of a front.

Saturday night was actually the worst weather at my location when the line of storms ahead of the cold front moved through. Wind gusts were approximately 35mph (56kph), enough to sway entire trees. From what I can tell, no damage occured in my neighborhood. Over the whole weekend (Friday afternoon through Sunday afternoon) rainfall totaled 1.8 in, or 4.6cm for you metric people. Ok, so I measured in cm to start with and used a calculator to convert to inches. Why, yes, I can use metric when I feel like it.

Now for some photos of the storms.


The storm that spawned the F1 tornado approximately 40 miles SE of Huntsville in Albertville, AL. The dome is the tornadic updraft.


A second supercell thunderstorm approximately 40 miles south of Huntsville. This storm did not spawn a tornado.


The back (southwest) edge of a supercell thunderstorm that formed directly over my house. It became severe but did not spawn a tornado.

All of the above photos were taken within 10 minutes of each other on Friday. It was an interesting afternoon.