Storm chaser Tony Laubach reported live on AccuWeather on the evening of March 15, explaining some of the difficulties with tracking tornadoes in places like Mississippi and Alabama.
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00:00Severe storms and dangerous tornadoes have torn across parts of the central and southeastern U.S.
00:05AccuWeather meteorologist and storm chaser Tony Laubach is following this continuing threat.
00:09He's joining us live from Livingston, Alabama. Tony,
00:12we had some nasty storms out there. What's the latest with you?
00:19Well, we unfortunately are kind of probably on the back end of the chase here as we
00:23talked to you last hour as we were there on I-20 crossing into Alabama.
00:28Very slow moving traffic, limited visibility. We were actually stuck in a pretty lengthy traffic
00:33jam for quite some time as folks were just kind of waiting out the heavy rains to pass through,
00:37didn't see any issues, no damage or anything. We were tracking that tornadic storm. We crossed
00:43where it crossed and did not see anything there evident that a tornado came through there. So
00:47good news. That seems to be the common case for us here throughout the day as we've intercepted
00:51four different storms. One of them here, the Bay Springs storm, which we were live from earlier,
00:56sitting in a church parking lot watching this one as we rolled into town. Certainly as close to a
01:02visual confirmation of a tornado as we got, we still can't even tell you whether or not a tornado
01:07was ongoing from this as we've been talking about all day just how incredibly difficult it is out
01:12here to spot storms. As I mentioned, we were on four different tornadic storms, all of them having
01:18various confirmations of warnings, either from spotter indicated to radar indicated, and we were
01:24in the hook of a lot of those and certainly were not able to verify any of those. Not only with the
01:29tornado itself, but crossing past after these storms went through and not seeing any damage
01:34left behind either. So that is some good news, at least for us. We know this is much more widespread
01:39than anything that just outside of the bubbles that we have seen here in eastern and southeastern
01:45Mississippi throughout the day today. But good news for us is that some of the heavier tornadic
01:50storms that we eventually got on were not producing and did not produce even after they
01:56got away. Most of these storms were moving at quite the speeds, anywhere between 50 and 60 miles per
02:01hour. So dealing with the logistics of trying to find road networks to keep up with a lot of these,
02:05you don't really do that out here unlike in the plains where you have pristine views for miles
02:10on end. A lot of times here you're just kind of aiming yourself to an intersection point and
02:14hoping that you're able to get a view either through some trees in a field or even just
02:18looking straight down the road as it crosses in front of you. So allowing ourselves that
02:21opportunity on multiple occasions did not yield any tornadoes for us. So again, good news for us
02:26in our neck of the woods. We obviously know that wasn't the case everywhere, but for us at least,
02:31we did not come across anything significant, Jeff. Really the biggest issues we've run into,
02:35we probably see some of that video, hydroplaning on the interstates. A lot of these storms came
02:39with some rain. Didn't see much in the way of hail out of a lot of these. It was just a heavy rain
02:42kind of carting, ponding on the interstate. So that sent a few drivers into the media.
02:46Unfortunately, most of them were able to get pulled out. Talked to one of those who was a
02:50chaser who was able to get on. He actually ended up eventually passing us there on I-20. So some
02:54good news there as well. So we're probably going to start kind of hanging back here a little bit
02:59here. Like I said, the storms have outraced us. Unfortunately, with the traffic, we just weren't
03:03able to keep up. And if we can't do that on the interstate, unlikely we're going to find another
03:06highway that's going to allow us that access. So our chase pretty much done here in Livingston,
03:10Alabama. And we're happy to report, at least from our vantage point, not much issue with any
03:16of the storms we tracked today. All right, Tony, we appreciate your reporting. Your insight as
03:20always, whether it's in a meeting as we're planning for the storms or out in the field
03:25live on the air. And here you can see Interstate 565 in the Huntsville metro. And the good news
03:32in northern Alabama, at the moment, at the moment, we are tornado warning free there. A couple of
03:36warnings in Tennessee.