Tuesday I stood in the middle of a high-end EF4 tornado path, in Pleasant Grove, just west of Birmingham). It was quite unreal, standing in a cleared "alley" through the trees and houses, where I could diagonally see a few miles SW (1st pic) to NE (2nd pic).
It was already almost 4 weeks ago, yet much of the neighborhood still looked like the morning after. Really amazing; have never seen anything like it, and couldn't help but wonder how more people were not killed in the outbreak. Everyone I have spoken to though knew 1) it would be a bad day, 1-2 days in advance and 2) when actual warnings were issued.
Most of the workday is communicating via briefings, email, and phone... and only some of the time composing a regional forecast summary for 2/3rds of the state. Everyone here is also very interested in the Mississippi River because of potential competition for resources with what will be probably another large state/federal response, so I have been putting together a daily summary on that situation as well. I have also been coordinating with the local NWS and a few of them have visited here, working with the JFO GIS folks on tornado path assessments, etc. The other thing is maintaining a network of contacts for the disaster response centers scattered throughout the state, so that I can call them individually and spread the word if lightning or severe weather is headed their way.
Kinda busy so will have to end it there. Here is a sampling of pictures:
