A series of violent tornadoes moved across Alabama Thursday March 25, 2021. This is live coverage on ABC 33/40 in Birmingham with James Spann and Taylor Sarallo in the studio, and a large team in the field.
@@KR_Diecasts As a resident of a GA county that borders AL, I follow both Jason and James in order to know what's coming our way, because the Atlanta TV stations don't get interested in storms until they cross the state line and that doesn't give us enough lead time.
@@cllewis1 WSB did a great job though on Thursday Night and Early Friday. I posted something from them. I was watching them as it hit Newnan, but didn't get to screen record that part. I'm kind of disappointed that I didn't start watching WSB sooner, much less screen recording it..........
I wanted to know exactly when he realized his wife was in danger, so I looked up where he lives. At about 2:01:30 you can hear he hesitates in what he is saying.. At 2:06:12 where he is pointing with his finger is where he lives, he texts his wife at 2:07:04 the first time, and when his fist is on the wall at 2:07:40 is when it is at his house. I think his wife replies back to him at 2:09:50 when he sighs, a sigh of relief. I work with parcel maps a lot for work and if you just look up the state, county and parcel map, most maps allow you to search by the landowner.
I will remember this day forever. I was sitting at work when we got the warning that the tornado at 1:28:10 was coming right for us. Those of us with shelters at home left for home as fast as we could, not a good idea but there was nowhere safe to go at work. I only live eight minutes from work but as I turned into my driveway, James Spann on the radio was already telling us to get off the roads and leaves were flying around me. They said the name of my neighborhood on TV. I heard the noise of the tornado but I didn't think it hit us until I emerged from my house and trees, limbs, pieces of roofs, etc. were everywhere. We had no power for the rest of the day. I work in insurance claims and the following day was like nothing I'd seen before or since.
A large violent tornado is zeroing in on his house with his wife and he seamlessly texts his wife and doesn't miss a beat. This is the most legendary tornado coverage ever.
@@lordmatthewanunnahybrid1356 yes! I didn't realize anything happened until he returned after going off screen for a bit and said that the tornado hit his house but his wife was ok!
James Spann, what can I say? You’re considered a true meteorological legend who once again stayed on the air for so long , keeping the residents of Alabama safe. I live in N.C. but he is definitely well heard of everywhere and a lot of people owe their lives to you ,James!! I don’t know of many meteorologists who are as dedicated as you are so many thanks to you by so many and GOD BLESS YOU James. There aren’t enough words to express the gratitude by many to you .
With his own Kin in the path of the storm, James doesn't miss a beat. Keeps on going even though his wife and home were affected. Has to be every weatherman's worst nightmare. What a legend!
If you have not seen the coverage of April 27, 2011, go look at I believe it's the morning storms go through Holly Pond, the hometown of Jason Simpson's family. The emotion in his voice brought tears to my eyes. Makes you realize these are real people losing their homes and lives.
@@chrisweaver6187 I've watched the 04/27/11 footage several times. You can definitely tell when Jason 's family is under the gun. What got me was when James' voice broke when he was speaking to Walt Maddox about the university.
I remember one Spann-ism from January 23, 2012: "That thing is tighter than a tick's fanny". I know it was a serious situation, but that one cracked me up lol!
I don't even live anywhere near tornado alley (Maine) and I can still listen to this guy talk for hours and cover these events. Don't know what it is about his presentation and delivery but he makes these live trackings incredibly interesting to watch. This station and it's viewers are really blessed to have this guy covering these events.
I think 2011 as well as Jasper in 1974 was more traumatic for him as he was able to talk about it on his weatherbrains episode last night. Vs with 2011 he couldn't talk about it for at least 6 months @nd the stuff he saw in Jasper in 1974 he said he doesn't want to ever talk about so yeah
You know, these videos are great to have on in the backround while I work the Night Shift. And It's also nice. Soothing, really to have James Spann and company to lullaby me while I have a Nap. Hope everyone stays safe in Alabama during the Tornado Season.
James, your courage and wisdom is not lost on anyone. You are a hero to all. You've saved countless lives over the years and have educated thousands. Thank you sir for everything. You will definitely go down as one of the greats in the books next to Dr fugita and Dr Forbes.
I watched this whole situation unfold on Twitter. Hopefully the recovery in Alabama (especially after the 17th!) goes well. A lot of people respected the polygon and I'm more than glad for it.
James saying a tornado hitting any particular house is extremely low, odds wise. That is heartbreaking given how things turned out. Not wrong, just heartbreaking. James got gut punched by those same oddds he talked about, and by the same token somebody else got majorly lucky. James is a weather legend really. Every region has theirs. Some transcend regions. James is known of as far afield as Europe, Russia, Japan. I'd argue James is a globally known weather legend thanks to streams and the 33/40 channel uploading things
Damn you can see the exact moment he reads the text about his wife and home. He takes that deep breath. Right at the 2 hour and ten minute mark. This man is a legend. Best in the country.
I was at work right off hwy 119 in Greystone and I literally watch the tornado go right by my building. It was crazy. I took a really cool picture of it and tried to post it on the 33/40 website but it wouldn't go thru. I'll never forget that day. We had James on the whole time and he helped get us through it. I hate that his house got hit.
When that tornado hit james spanns house, it became personal for him .. but he kept on going .. not sure how he done it.. hopefully he does an interview about what he was thinking when this happend
Man.... If there is a GOAT status 4 meteorologists, James Spann has his on lock... U know its kinda messed up when he purposely cracks at himself when he says 'if u have friends or family in the polygons call them & say James Spann has got his jacket off & his suspenders on you need 2 take cover.... He so loves the people of his state & region, continually hammering home the importance of taking the warnings & precautions seriously & respecting the radar as well as the live pictures, the true he knows how 2 honor the lives of those who sadly didn't make it during the 2011 outbreak as well as the survivors... he'll 4ever keep saving lives, a true testament of his character..... 🙌
His teammate Taylor brought it when he needed 2 step away & check on his wife, truly cant understate having people with u that u trust on your weather team 2 have your back.....
the most astounding part of this all, is how much of the area he has memorized, just all places and structures that he knows, accurately describing where businesses are to better give an understanding to people where the storm is. just wow.
At 1:21:25, that "Shelby County label is incorrect. That is on Morgan Road near I-459, right near where I live. They are driving down into Shelby County towards Helena.
I live in central Virginia in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains so we don’t get a lot of tornadoes. By the time they make it over the mountains they’ve weakened from raining themselves out with the cooler temperatures in the higher altitudes but about a month or so ago we had a scary (scary by VA standards) day where I was woken up at 7am by my phone for a tornado warning. Being a bit of a weather nerd myself I have Radar Omega and had seen that we were in a 5% tornado risk (again, scary by Virginia standards) so before I went to sleep the night before, I put a bag together with some water, my battery pack for my phone, a pair of clothes, my laptop for school, and a couple other necessities and set out my cat’s crate and my boots just in case (note: helmet was already downstairs). When I was woken up by that warning, I grabbed my cat before she could realize I had picked her up and shoved her in her crate, slipped on my boots, grabbed my backpack, woke up my grandfather, and went downstairs to our tornado safe spot. My brain was in “shelter now, ask questions later” mode of course. The circulation ended up being a short lived EF2 damaging 15 structures and causing 2 injuries a county over and we weren’t even in the polygon yet, we were in line to be in the next one had the warning been continued. We then went back upstairs and tuned in to our local news. All this to say, my cat gave me the dirtiest look when she heard the phones go off in this coverage because she didn’t enjoy being scooped up and shoved in her crate 😅
For some reason the video leaves out the tornado warnings that happened I believe around 9pm in Chilton and Coosa counties near Lake Mitchell, EF2 damage surveyed by the NWS. And then later more EF2 damage in Clay and Randolph counties before moving into Georgia where it exploded into EF4 damage (which would be covered by the Atlanta stations of course).
@@peachxtaehyung the problem with the 33/40 website is there's no way to get it to play on the TV. I spent over half an hour trying to figure out different ways to get it to stream on the TV. It would stream to devices like the hub, but not on bigger screeens. And not everyone is on Facebook or social media. I agree, in severe situations, making it more easily visible would be beneficial, but how to make that happen, I don't know.
@@sierratrilogy I was in the same boat as you as I wanted to stream it on the big screen in the living room. I used the built-in browser on my Firestick (I think it's named silk?) and I have also used the Firefox app for Firestick. It did an OK job, the live-stream video size matched the screen size of my TV so it fit the frame well, but it was a bit laggy at times. All things aside, I would think ABC 33/40 would have an app for firestick (I don't know what you use) at the least. My local NC news station has a native app to live stream the weather, surprised they don't. Best of luck with this in the future.
I know it's very serious. And I appreciate your safety oriented nature. But I fall asleep listening to weather coverage. I'm not all that sleepy after hearing a velocity couplet referred to as "hanging in there like a hair on a biscuit" lmao. You're a wonderful human, Mr. Spann.
I agree with that too. It was very violent looking tornadoes on the sky cam by itself. Multiple angles of that thing was terrifying, but not as violent looking as the sky cam.
Thanks James it was a scary afternoon I went to Calera cause I had to go o Birmingham for an MRI and when I dove up 65 the house on the side of the inerstate was damage with a car flipped in the house please listen to James when he says get in your safe place and get a helmet and closed toed shoes and one thing James I learned from another meteorologist is we need whistles or airborne in our safe place because if we get stuck we need to get first responders to us so we blow the whistle
In major markets a log radio stations will simulcast TV coverage. When I worked in radio one summer we had three warnings in one week and since we were small market resell we did was simulcast on the AM and FM stations. But we got a lot of good press for how we handled everything that week.
There are captions available on YT. I'm currently watching this with them on. I think depending on *how* you're watching it, the option may or may not be available. To speak to them bot doing captions, I had read somewhere that, if I'm not mistaken, as a result of the Tuscaloosa tornado, captions were made mandatory in severe wx situations. I know they do them in Oklahoma. I'll try to find where I read that.
It's interesting that the same general area in the tornado warning polygon in south Jefferson and north Shelby had epic flash flooding last Wednesday night.
Tornadoes are rare in Alabama during the summer. The storm track is too far north, and the wind fields aloft are weak. We do have convective pop up thunderstorms that are isolated or scattered hit and miss, but they don't spawn tornadoes. That can put out a lot of cloud to ground lightning that's very dangerous in itself though. It's November as I'm typing this and we're in our "Second tornado season", as this time of year of often referred to.
WSR-57 and maybe a WSR-74. The WSR-57 was like a military-surplus leftover from WWII. There was a little bit of refinement on them for weather, but not much. The 74 was a bit better but still not close to the WSR-88 of today. Plotted storm tracks with a grease pencil and paper maps overlaid on the round screen. I've seen son YT videos where people were using them before, and there is also something on the Brent/Centerville tornado in 1973 that ran over the NWS radar there.
@@GravyHucker If you really want to see a WSR-57 and Tornadoes search for the 1965 Twin Cities Tornadoes. The NWS Chanhassen digitized the radar scans from that night and you can see how an old WSR-57 looked.
@@GravyHucker That is considered one of Minnesota’s seminal weather events and there is no TV coverage on You Tube BUT there is 5+ hours of radio coverage from WCCO from that night. Many people say the WCCO Radio coverage helped to save many lives. Thirteen people were killed but it is said that the death toll would have been much higher without WCCO radio. It was also the first time in the Twin Cities that civil defense sirens were used for weather. In those days there were a lot more sirens due to the Cold War.
@@paulsonj72 I appreciate the history lesson. I'm far more familiar with severe weather in the Southern Plains and Southeast US, for some reason I have never heard much about tornadoes from places like Minnesota, Michigan, North Dakota, etc. Maybe ignorance on my part, maybe it's just not as talked about? Seeing how the warning process has changed over the years along with detection and forecasting is almost as interesting as the events to me. Again, I thank you.
At 1:27:13, he says you might hear the sirens but most people don't in their homes. Right when he said that, we heard them, in our basement, I kid you not! I don't agree with him 100% about the warning sirens. I do agree that they should not be depended on. People who think "I don't need a NOAA Weather Radio, we have sirens out here", sure, people have got to stop thinking that and taking for granted that they will hear one. On the other hand, you can't just assume that almost nobody will hear the sirens if they are indoors. They reach a 'limited number of people' and that's it. Well, they probably reach a few more people than that.
Hes talking about like when its 4 in the morning or if you have walls made of layers of brick and the wind on the window makes it hard to hear them and plus some people in Alabama are deaf ,not saying that you are And also some places don't even have any sirens
JAMES SPANN WE HAVE NOAA WEATHER RADIO 📻 AND I ALREADY GOT MY NOAA WEATHER RADIO 📻 CHARGE AND MY PHONE 📱 CHARGE BUY ME RIGHT NOW WATCHING THE TORNADO Coverage FROM Cudahy Wisconsin right now
No, it's not a generational tornado outbreak. Spann gets that question every time there's a higher end severe weather and tornado threat. "Will this be like April 27, 2011?" He doesn't like to answer that question. How he does is he says, no it won't, that was a generational event, but if a tornado comes down your street and hits your house, that's your April 27, 2011. We've had deadly severe weather and tornadic events without it being a generational event. November 15, 1989, Huntsville, 21 deaths, March 27, 1994, when one hit the Goshen United Methodist Church in Piedmont, killing 20 people, April 8, 1998, Oak Grove to Pratt City, 32 people in Jefferson County died, plus 2 more in St. Clair County. December 16, 2000, 11 people dead in the southern part of Tuscaloosa. Those are some examples of non-generational tornadic events that still caused destruction and loss of life.
The people that die is just like everybody else they need to realise when you hear about a tornado outbreak in your area you better believe you gonna see a tornado 100% It upset me we are professionals reporting every warning and yet people die because they don't pay attention
