On Wednesday, the South had some pretty bad storms, including us in Knoxville. We've been involved in many tornado warnings since we moved here 3 years ago, but none as bad as Wednesday. From 4:00 PM on, we were hit by storm after storm, all of them providing tornado warnings. We spent a good part of the day hiding in tornado-safe rooms at work. In between 2 storms, I went home but Lisa had to stay at work.
Most tornado warnings involve one storm system, which usually passes through the area pretty quickly. On Wednesday, each storm system was followed by another, with only about 20-30 minutes in between. The same systems that did so much damage in Alabama, worked there way up into eastern Tennessee. We just sat watching the news and seeing the damage the storms were causing, knowing they were on the way to us.
The storms in the late evening were the worst. Lightning was going off all night. The news was monitoring lightning strikes and during one 10 minute stretch, there were over 6,300 lightning strikes in our area. Of course the wind and rain were horrible too. Then the hail came. This picture is a piece of hail I grabbed from outside my window. The coin is a silver dollar. It hailed for about 20 minutes at this size. Our car looks like a golf ball with all the dimples in it. Trees, windows, buildings were all severely damaged. Many homes, included apartments in our complex, were flooded out. All roads out of our complex were blocked by floods and Lisa was stuck at work much later than her shift.
Tornadoes hit all around Knoxville, but nothing in the city. Here is a map I found that shows where they all touched down.
Tornado Map
You can see how they came up from the southwest and were moving toward Knoxville. We're lucky that we didn't get hit, especially when you see what happened in other places from the same storms.
The storms in the late evening were the worst. Lightning was going off all night. The news was monitoring lightning strikes and during one 10 minute stretch, there were over 6,300 lightning strikes in our area. Of course the wind and rain were horrible too. Then the hail came. This picture is a piece of hail I grabbed from outside my window. The coin is a silver dollar. It hailed for about 20 minutes at this size. Our car looks like a golf ball with all the dimples in it. Trees, windows, buildings were all severely damaged. Many homes, included apartments in our complex, were flooded out. All roads out of our complex were blocked by floods and Lisa was stuck at work much later than her shift.
Tornadoes hit all around Knoxville, but nothing in the city. Here is a map I found that shows where they all touched down.
Tornado Map
You can see how they came up from the southwest and were moving toward Knoxville. We're lucky that we didn't get hit, especially when you see what happened in other places from the same storms.
4 comments:
I'm glad you guys are ok. Scary stuff!!
That is way scary! I am glad to hear that you guys are all okay! Did it scare Duncan and Bailey?
Scary stuff! Glad everything is ok.
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