You did a great job on pointing out the dry air intrusion you saw on the models. For awhile it looked like it might not come to play, but it did and you were talking about well in advance. Good job.
As always, we were perhaps 1 or 2 things shy of a much higher end event. Thank goodness the storm mode didn't start out completely discrete and endure that was for hours.
Yeah it was obviously no 4/27/11, but there have been several damaging tornadoes and large hail which has, in my opinion, verified the moderate risk. The Jacksonville tornado is looking like an EF3 to me (although we said the same thing about the EF2 tornadoes on February 24).
I certainly didn't expect the dry air to have this much effect though. I was more in the line of thinking mixing may have am effect on surface dewpoints. I think it added up to multiple problems with the setup away from the few places it come together for. It was easy to see the insane wind fields and instability and as you said, miss the small thing or two that impedes the outbreak. Really shows how rare events like 4/15/11 and 4/27/11 are.
I'd say low end EF2 on the church. Looks like the roof lifted off and the heavy brick vaneer just folded over.
It will be interesting to see the public's response to how this played out in Central MS and Central AL. Last night and the first half of today it seems the severe threat was really hyped for this area and a lot of places closed early.
As usual, the mets will probably take a lot of heat for it. I hate it, not because I WANT bad weather in my area, but because people will use this as an excuse to not take future threats seriously. The general public doesn't understand the ingredients that have to come together for tornadoes.
Maybe lightning enhanced it some or lights from the college and any nearby fields/stadiums?
Yeah, this forecast was nailed. Not a bust at all.
The PDS watch on 4/27/2011 extended down to Washington, Clark, and Monroe counties. Most of those places didn’t see a drop of rain, but I would say the overall forecast was nailed.With all respect to SPC and the places that took damage, I can't agree. While the worst damage took place in the moderate threat area and that area was forecasted pretty well in advance, we can't forget that almost the entire north half of AL was under a high probability PDS watch with strong tornado wording down to Clanton. While obviously not a bust, it was not a nailed forecast. I'll chalk it up somewhere in between much like 3/1/07 and 4/7/06.
The PDS watch on 4/27/2011 extended down to Washington, Clark, and Monroe counties. Most of those places didn’t see a drop of rain, but I would say the overall forecast was nailed.
Same goes for yesterday. We were a cap break away from what happened in East AL across all of Central AL. Even mesoscale guidance, such as the NAM and SREF, were indicating a cap break.