A FIsh Tale

Matthew Ingerson sent in a fish tale this week that may well have some veracity.   If you remember, there was a seeming out of the blue tornado warning late Wednesday night, issued by the National Weather Service in Huntsville for Marshall County.  Matthew follows the weather closely but he had not heard the warning, so when some co-workers asked him about it on Thursday, he was quite surprised.

He brushed it off and didn’t think anything else of it.  Until that afternoon… He received a text from his wife’s aunt who lives just north of New Hope, Alabama.  Her location is about 2 miles east of Highway 431, or about ¼ mile west of the intersection of Old Gurley Pike and Low Gap road.  She sent him a photo:

She was walking to check on her horses in the barn and found this intact fish lying in the gravel driveway.

Matthew wants to know:  other than waterspouts in Mobile and Baldwin counties, how many recorded tornadoes have touched down in Alabama in July?

Well Matthew, tornadoes are uncommon but not unheard of in July in Alabama.  They usually are spawned by dying tropical systems in the summer.  But you can’t rule out one if the helicity is strong enough to produce sufficient rotation in a storm.  Between 1950-2012, there have been 64 tornadoes in Alabama in July.

Obviously, the NWS in Huntsville thought the Marshall County storm has exhibiting sufficient rotation to produce a tornado the other night. Funnel clouds were reported with the storm and trees were downed near Lake Guntersville.  It is very possible that a small spin up may have developed over a lake or river and lifted some small fish, depositing them downwind.  It has happened in several well-documented cases.

So your fish tale may not be as far fetched as it seems at face value, Matthew.  Thanks for sharing!

Category: Alabama's Weather, Severe Weather