Tornadic storms speed through the Southeast

AccuWeather

Storm chaser Tony Laubach reported live on AccuWeather on the evening of March 15, explaining some of the difficulties with tracking tornadoes in places like Mississippi and Alabama.

Transcript

00:00Severe storms and dangerous tornadoes have torn across parts of the central and southeastern U.S.

00:05AccuWeather meteorologist and storm chaser Tony Laubach is following this continuing threat.

00:09He's joining us live from Livingston, Alabama. Tony,

00:12we had some nasty storms out there. What's the latest with you?

00:19Well, we unfortunately are kind of probably on the back end of the chase here as we

00:23talked to you last hour as we were there on I-20 crossing into Alabama.

00:28Very slow moving traffic, limited visibility. We were actually stuck in a pretty lengthy traffic

00:33jam for quite some time as folks were just kind of waiting out the heavy rains to pass through,

00:37didn't see any issues, no damage or anything. We were tracking that tornadic storm. We crossed

00:43where it crossed and did not see anything there evident that a tornado came through there. So

00:47good news. That seems to be the common case for us here throughout the day as we've intercepted

00:51four different storms. One of them here, the Bay Springs storm, which we were live from earlier,

00:56sitting in a church parking lot watching this one as we rolled into town. Certainly as close to a

01:02visual confirmation of a tornado as we got, we still can't even tell you whether or not a tornado

01:07was ongoing from this as we've been talking about all day just how incredibly difficult it is out

01:12here to spot storms. As I mentioned, we were on four different tornadic storms, all of them having

01:18various confirmations of warnings, either from spotter indicated to radar indicated, and we were

01:24in the hook of a lot of those and certainly were not able to verify any of those. Not only with the

01:29tornado itself, but crossing past after these storms went through and not seeing any damage

01:34left behind either. So that is some good news, at least for us. We know this is much more widespread

01:39than anything that just outside of the bubbles that we have seen here in eastern and southeastern

01:45Mississippi throughout the day today. But good news for us is that some of the heavier tornadic

01:50storms that we eventually got on were not producing and did not produce even after they

01:56got away. Most of these storms were moving at quite the speeds, anywhere between 50 and 60 miles per

02:01hour. So dealing with the logistics of trying to find road networks to keep up with a lot of these,

02:05you don't really do that out here unlike in the plains where you have pristine views for miles

02:10on end. A lot of times here you're just kind of aiming yourself to an intersection point and

02:14hoping that you're able to get a view either through some trees in a field or even just

02:18looking straight down the road as it crosses in front of you. So allowing ourselves that

02:21opportunity on multiple occasions did not yield any tornadoes for us. So again, good news for us

02:26in our neck of the woods. We obviously know that wasn't the case everywhere, but for us at least,

02:31we did not come across anything significant, Jeff. Really the biggest issues we've run into,

02:35we probably see some of that video, hydroplaning on the interstates. A lot of these storms came

02:39with some rain. Didn't see much in the way of hail out of a lot of these. It was just a heavy rain

02:42kind of carting, ponding on the interstate. So that sent a few drivers into the media.

02:46Unfortunately, most of them were able to get pulled out. Talked to one of those who was a

02:50chaser who was able to get on. He actually ended up eventually passing us there on I-20. So some

02:54good news there as well. So we're probably going to start kind of hanging back here a little bit

02:59here. Like I said, the storms have outraced us. Unfortunately, with the traffic, we just weren't

03:03able to keep up. And if we can't do that on the interstate, unlikely we're going to find another

03:06highway that's going to allow us that access. So our chase pretty much done here in Livingston,

03:10Alabama. And we're happy to report, at least from our vantage point, not much issue with any

03:16of the storms we tracked today. All right, Tony, we appreciate your reporting. Your insight as

03:20always, whether it's in a meeting as we're planning for the storms or out in the field

03:25live on the air. And here you can see Interstate 565 in the Huntsville metro. And the good news

03:32in northern Alabama, at the moment, at the moment, we are tornado warning free there. A couple of

03:36warnings in Tennessee.

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