Not even sure where to begin after watching the carnage from the storms last night in the SE part of the county. As of this writing the death toll is now up to 272 (180 in AL) and that number sadly will continue going up as they slowly and methodically work through the wreckage from the 164 reports of tornados last night.

Lets actually start there. The difference between Tornado reports and Tornadoes. The Tuscaloosa tornado was widely witnessed and no doubt generated dozens of reports while the storm was on the ground for what seemed like miles on end...and potentially the same storm created various tornadoes for many many miles. If you saw the tornado and reported it and I saw the SAME tornado and reported it...it would count as 2 tornado reports of the SAME tornado. This is why, so often there are SO many tornado reports on the map, yet when the research is conducted and the NWS determines the paths and number of actual different tornadoes, this number comes way down. It's fair to say, with the increased number of chasers out there over the last 15 years or so, that IF this would've happened 20 years ago, odds are there wouldn't have been as many reports of tornadoes. Although perhaps with the storms moving through populated areas the reports would've been closer. Regardless, my suspicion is that the 164 reports will in reality come WAY down in terms of the number of ACTUAL tornadoes. It is still impressive.

How does this compare in historical terms. Well the benchmark for tornado deaths is the infamous Tri-State Tornado back in March of 1925. It killed at least 695 people. In 1840 in Natchez, MS a tornado is believed to have killed around 315 people. Then the other, more recent outbreak is the infamous Super Outbreak in 1974. This outbreak killed 315 people with 148 actual tornadoes. So the numbers have been higher int he past sadly. This is the 3rd largest death toll since 1950 however which is significant for so many reasons.

There is some talk out there and it's an interesting discussion, not only by non government meteorologists but also from NOAA folks as well, about why the death toll was so high considering all the advances and the fabulous warnings/watches that were in effect for hours/minutes before the storms struck. For the most part, the word "surprise" shouldn't really be part of the conversation. this was so well forecasted, the information relayed so impressive by the media down there. The vast  population, except in some very unusual situations, was as informed about this outbreak/situation than at any other time. However there are circumstances that may have created issues for the various waves of storms that moved through. Mike Smith who used to work in the TV world back in the day and now is part of Accuweather wrote a though provoking blog on this very subject. Take a look.

The folks from NOAA will be assessing this over the next several months, initially giving ratings to the destruction and eventually, learning more about HOW people responded to the disaster before, during and afterwards. What actions did they take, when did they take them. A tremendous amount of information will be gleaned from all this and hopefully we'll learn more.

From the outside looking in however the response from the media during the event itself was amazing. I watched a lot of coverage from a meteorologist by the name of James Spann. Flawless work in my opinion. I'm sure others did as well...but this man was as solid as they came yesterday. Nothing fancy, no crazy, complicated radar analysis, just plain and simple. No 3D fancy graphics again simple is better. Something that many in the world of TV could learn from I think. Of course when you have a tower camera from Tuscaloosa showing the tornado, there really isn't much of a need for fancy stuff...the images do the talking for you.

The Weather Channel also provided good coverage and are now serving as a clearing house to some of the amazing videos that are circulating. I've seen some of these already, we've shown many on the news today with more to come...take a look.

The NWS's local offices in several states are busy now analyzing the tracks/paths and trying to figure out the intensities using the EF Scale. So far I believe there has been 1 EF4 tornado so far this year, that being near St Louis last week ( my memory may not be good on that fact though). No doubt, by looking at the damage there was certainly EF3-4 damage there. EF5 damage may be somewhat harder to come by. Greesburg, KS and Parkersburg, IA both were classified as EF5's...with winds 201+  mph. Here is a simplistic defination of EF5 damage...

Strong framed, well built houses leveled off foundations and swept away; steel-reinforced concrete structures are critically damaged; tall buildings collapse or have severe structural deformations.

Now by looking at the video it does seem like this criteria was met in some instances, however they also look very hard at the construction of the buildings destroyed and this plays a large role in tipping the scales from and EF4 to and EF5.

Other tentacles to the story...no power...for days and weeks to come for many. Now no gas sice the stations don't have power...the ones that do are tapped out. Alabama Power officials are saying they have restored power to 93,000 homes since the peak of the Wednesday storms. At the time of this writing 319,000 customers were still without power in Alabama. 148,000 customers in the Birmingham metro area are without power. 135,000 in the western area are still without power. No water for many. Here is a storm blog from WBRC-TV with updated information...including a higher death toll in AL (192).

Finally FOX4 also has information/videos on the web page...take a look at some of there work.

So much more to write about...I'll do another blog tomorrow.

Joe