It figures that I would have to work on Independence Day. While most were outside in the swimming pool and working on the barbeque and shooting fireworks, I would have to be inside working. Regardless of this saddening fact, it ended up being a fairly interesting night. We were placed under a Severe Thunderstorm Warning around 520pm in the afternoon...
BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BIRMINGHAM AL
524 PM CDT WED JUL 4 2001
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED A
* SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING FOR...
MADISON COUNTY IN ALABAMA
* UNTIL 600 PM CDT
* AT 521 PM CDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM 7 MILES NORTH OF HUNTSVILLE...MOVING EAST AT 25
MPH.
* LOCATIONS IN OR NEAR THE PATH OF THIS STORM
INCLUDE...TRIANA...REDSTONE ARSENAL...MOORES MILL...MERIDIANVILLE...
HUNTSVILLE...CHASE...RYLAND AND MADISON.
STRONG DAMAGING WIND IS LIKELY WITH THIS STORM ALONG WITH FREQUENT
DEADLY LIGHTNING. TAKE COVER NOW. FIND SUBSTANTIAL SHELTER. AVOID
WINDOWS...VEHICLES AND MOBILE HOMES.
I was inside, not having a clue what was going on, when suddenly everyone in the store started looking outside really strange, and I did, not being to far away from the entrance, pick up the smell of rain and hear a few claps of thunder. I work at a grocery store(Kroger), you see, and so it isn't the kind of job where we can ever just stop - we always have customers. As storm began, customers didn't want to go out in the rain, so they just waited. I was really jealous that I couldn't go over there with them and see what was going on. My job is that of a cashier in U-SCAN(new technology for us rednecks - the customer can use a touch-screen computer program to check themselves out), so I had to stay where I was to see that no one stole anything. Suddenly, we all heard I loud loud crack, which I truly believed to be direcly over my head. The phones went out and all of the touch-screens went to a rainbow color... We had been hit by lightning. The power wasn't out, however, so business as usual continued for a wh
ile. Then, after about five minutes, the power finally did go out and all of the cash registers locked up(despite the fact that we had working generators). We even had to call the fire dept. because we all smelled smoke from the lightning strike. Even though we're normally a 24/7 store, we did have to close for around an hour - mother nature showed us that she is still in charge. Finally around 7pm everything was back to normal except for two registers that never decided to wake up, our rainbow-colored U-SCAN monitors, and our telephone system(which took the biggest hit). I always have to miss out on everything because I'm at work, but today was quite an adventure anyway. Here is the Local Storm Report for that particular severe thunderstorm...
PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BIRMINGHAM AL
658 PM CDT WED JUL 04 2001
TIME(CDT) .....CITY LOCATION..... STATE ...EVENT/REMARKS...
....COUNTY LOCATION....
0506 PM FLORENCE AL WIND DAMAGE
07/04/01 LAUDERDALE TREES WERE BLOWN DOWN
WEST OF FLORENCE ALONG
THE TENNESSEE RIVER.
0520 PM MUSCLE SHOALS AL WIND DAMAGE
07/04/01 COLBERT A FEW TREES AND POWER
LINES WERE BLOWN DOWN
NEAR MUSCLE SHOALS.
0545 PM COUNTY WIDE AL WIND DAMAGE
07/04/01 MADISON A FEW TREES WERE KNOCKED
DOWN IN DIFFERENT
LOCATIONS ACROSS THE
COUNTY.
0615 PM SCOTTSBORO AL WIND DAMAGE
07/04/01 JACKSON TREES WERE BLOWN DOWN
NEAR THE HOSPITAL IN
SCOTTSBORO. ADDITIONAL
TREES AND POWER LINES
WERE BLOWN DOWN JUST
SOUTH OF THE CITY.
Daniel Lamb
Huntsville, AL
daniel{at}wwol.org
http://danielwxradar.tripod.com
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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