I remember a couple of days prior to the actual event forecasting for and
just um it seemed obviously as we got closer to the event, it became evident
and just clear that this was going to be different than any other severe
weather event we had ever covered. I actually remember being in a meeting
with management and with chief meteorologist jerry Tracy and we had
obviously been in a lot of meetings leading up to the event. And I remember
one member of management said, listen, we're tired of hearing about all of the
weather and the forecasting. Just tell me how bad it's going to be.
And jerry looked at him and said it's going to be historic, this will be
a historic event. And I remember that so clearly because I don't think I
really grasped and I don't think any of us really grasped what he meant by that.
And I don't think he even understood, you know, a lot of people lost power
during that time, during those morning storms, which then had consequences for
the round later in the day. To I think since April 27, I think people, I
really do think people take the weather more seriously. I think you have to, I
think a lot of people um April 27 was kind of a defining moment As far as
Alabamians are concerned. A lot of times you'll describe things that
happened prior to April 27 or things that happened after April 27. But I
think, I think since that event, people know how serious it can be and we may
never see another april 27th here in central Alabama. But I think all it
takes is one, all it takes is one E f three, E F four or F five at your house.
And that is your april 27th. This is severe weather season was definitely
supposed to be more active and so far it's already held true. I mean we've
had multiple events, we've had to high risk severe weather events which um you
know, I've only had or forecasted a handful of high risk severe weather
events In my 20 plus years of forecasting weather. And we've had two
of those already this year. So it's definitely been a lot more active. I
think the one important thing that people
when it comes to severe weather, if they are able to see The severe weather,
if they're able to see the tornadoes like we see a lot more of nowadays,
just because of obviously technology, they take it a lot more seriously. And
I think seeing the tornadoes on April 27 and how many there were, how huge
they were. I mean those were monster tornadoes. I remember thinking as they
were happening and live on the air and we were showing them I remember
thinking not only how not only what what a monster tornado that was it came
through Tuscaloosa but that there were people that were not going to survive
this tornado. There were people that were not going to live through this
tornado and there was nothing we could do about it. W. V. Tm 13 Live Doppler
has a huge advantage Now. You know we can track those super cell tornadoes,
thunderstorms live and in real time and every minute counts Every minute that
you have to be able to get into your safe place. It counts. It is it's
helpful those super sales were moving 50-60 mph. So when you're tracking
something that fast, having a live radar image is huge. It's everything I
go through Cahaba Heights a lot and you know the morning round came through
Cahaba Heights completely change the landscape. All of the trees are gone.
You know Cahaba Heights used to be full of trees and and um the landscape is
completely different and that's true of a lot of places. It will never look the
same. People's lives will never be the same. There are so many ways that you
can get weather information. There are so many ways that you can get alert and
that you can get warnings and you just have to do it and you have to you have
to act when a warning is issued. You can't just ignore it and say I just
ignored it. You know it's issued for a reason. I think I think the biggest
thing that people have to to understand is that you have to act