I have some weather geek in me so I watch alot of these shows. Many of the events that come to light, in the aftermath, defy explanation. I think it was the one in Tuscaloosa where an infant was tossed a quarter mile and was found virtually unscathed.

Damn I lived on sweet gum road back then.
The two neighbors that got killed was on Persimmon Tree.

I've seen 8' sheets of tin stuck 3' deep in the ground, otherwise undamaged.
I've seen a mobile home, on blocks, left untouched while the brick house 30' away was totally destroyed. I've seen a house completely wiped off the slab, except for the bathroom walls, where the entire family was taking shelter. And none of them injured.

Me and Travis had just got home from work that day( We went in late and then left early due to the weather threat) As we got home we walked out into the front yard, looked up and saw the clouds spinning in circles, trash was falling from them. Not long after, Rainsville and our end of Sand Mountain got hammered. The storm was heading that way.

I think the only thing that kept us from getting hit was the fact that we were in a valley. A lot of times I think when the land meets the clouds it helps form up the tornado.

The bad think about the Alabama Tornado alley is that you have a very short distance of visibility due to all of the mountains, terrain, timber and etc.

Of course, no one should be outside looking for the actual storm, but I know I've heard storm chasers say that it's easier to track and follow a storm on Oklahoma verses here.

According to the shows I've watched you're correct.They're incredibly unpredictable though. A few yrs ago 4 storm chasers were killed. One of them was touted as being the best in the business. This tornado did something completely off the charts and it cost him and his crew their lives.

Here you go. My old house is the lot on the right side at the 1:15 mark.

I'm almost 52 and I still dream about them from when I was a kid.

In June, after the 2011 tornadoes, I was mowing hay in our back field. I stopped the tractor two different times to pick up photographs before the mower hit them that I saw laying in the field. One picture was of 3 or 4 young, black school girls dressed in school uniforms. That picture had to be from either the Tuscaloosa storm or from Pickens county. Look at the "Non verified path" on this map.

http://maptd.com/wp-content/uploads...formation-alabama-tornado-april-2011.jpg

If you extended the black line that goes through Reform, Cordova and Blount county, it would come very close to our part of Marshall county, which is not highlighted on the map. I'd guess that as the crow flies, our place is 150 miles from Tuscaloosa or Pickens counties.

Shortly after those 2011 tornados I found a fairly large piece of a barn roof on our hunting land in Plantersville, even though thee was no verified tornado in the area.
Plus there's no homes or barns (that I know of) within several miles. There was a tornado in Marion that day, and we can only guess that's where it came from, roughly 30 miles away.

I had never really just looked at it on a map. The red dot is my house, the blue dot should be somewhat close to my parents house. If that EF4 path was a couple of miles or less either way it would have flattened either of us. 1 mile wide at peak width, 190 mph and nearly 30 miles long.

I've always thought that

You guys talking about tornado tracks, check this map out. I have always thought it was fascinating...



The brighter the white line the stronger the tornado.

Notice anything about the Appalachian Mountain Chain?

3 tracks in NA . One across Cullman Co. , one across South Madison just North of the river and one across Limestone and North Madison Co. If there's tornados north of B'ham they'll be along at least one of these paths.

Without googling it...... Do countries on the other side of the world have Tornadoes? I assume they do, but I've never really seen anything about it.

No way for all the pieces to come together. Where's Skinny?

They do, especially big ones in Central Russia and Mongolia, but nobody lives there. We get the best tornadoes and hurricanes.

It has to do with heating from the Gulf, the upflift from the App Mountains, and the way the jet stream stream dips due to the curvature of the Earth in Spring and late Summer. Basically its just hot air downstairs and cold air upstairs coming together at the right angle.

That's what I meant to say. So the mountains make it impossible to get the correct angle?