Severe Storms Slam the South - Ten Fatalities

Storms had gusts over 80 mph, golfball-sized hail, torrential rain

Severe thunderstorms pounded the South this weekend, from Louisiana to Virginia. Wind gusts hit 84 mph at Muscle Shoals and 75 mph at Huntsville and Triana AL. At least 10 fatalities were reported due to flash flooding and falling tree limbs.

This is what the line of strong to severe storms looked like around 2 am Sunday morning. Birmingham (where my youngest daughter lives) reported two gusts to 48 mph and 0.3” of rain in just 3 minutes!

There was a long line of severe thunderstorm warnings (in orange on the map above at 2 am) and a handful of tornado warnings (in red on the map above).

At 3:17 am, there were 126,909 customers without power in Alabama and that number was climbing rapidly. There were roughly 65,000 customers without power in Mississippi and 30,000 in Lousiana.

Here’s the number of customers without power as of 5 pm Sunday: Virginia 189,248, Georgia 65,929, West Virginia 63,929, Alabama 55,145, North Carolina 46,907, Kentucky 22,234. There were over 2,000 customers without power in Florida, Louisiana, Tennessee and South Carolina

The storms were along a strong cold front that will bring frost to areas of the south that saw temperatures in the 70s on Saturday.

Here’s the Severe Storm Reports for Saturday/Saturday Night (16th). There were 377 separate reports of wind damage and another 15 severe hail reports. The ten fatalities reported wer due to flash flooing and falling trees.

Here’s the Severe Storm Reports from Sunday/Sunday night (16th) from the Storm Prediction Center.