The Weather, The Morning After

We were very, very lucky here. Just seeing the pictures of the devastation to the south of us. I mean, it’s hard to even know what to say.  But who’s thinking about anything else? The internet has brought us closer. I sat on twitter and fretted over folks in Memphis, Chattanooga, and Knoxville, who seemed to just be getting pounded.

And then I watched nothing come from the few people I know in Alabama (they’re all fine) and it was eerie. You get used to the constant chatter, even if you only dip in and out of it.

Last night, on the Weather Channel, they were unclear if the storm that started in Mississippi, went through Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, and into Georgia had just one sustained tornado on the ground or if it was just the same cell with tornadoes moving in and out of existence. I was reminded of the Tri-State Tornado of 1925, which appears to have been on the ground for at least 219 miles. There’s always been controversy about that tornado because it just seemed so improbable to scientists that you could have a tornado that would stay on the ground uninterrupted for that long. It defies how they understand tornadoes. And yet, all the evidence still left suggests that’s what happened.

In the coming days, we’ll get a better sense of this tornado, but I think what it shows is that, yeah, when circumstances are right, tornadoes can be on the ground for a long damn time.

Anyway, it’s bad. ‘Disaster’ seems almost like too small a word for it. Looking at the pictures coming out of Alabama, it’s really amazing that thousands of people aren’t dead.

Which is no comfort, of course, to the families of people who are.