Weather: In Pictures

Taking a quick break from forecasting here tonight, and sharing some of my pictures from Christmas break.

Over Christmas, John King, my roommate and I went up to the Smoky Mountains to visit, it was his first time, and considering I live an hour and a half away, it was the perfect reason to go. We went to Abrams Falls, since I hadn't been there and its only a two mile hike to the falls. This is what greeted us when we came down a hill and around a corner. Of course, we took pictures with the falls, cuz thats just what geoscience majors do.

We began hiking back, and found some evidence of the April tornado outbreak, Tuscaloosa wasn't the only place that got hit, even the Smoky Mountains were affected by them. This dispels a common myth about tornados, they are not affected by hilly or uneven terrain. Living in the mountains does not completely protect you from tornados.

You can kinda see how the trees fell.

This shows it better, how a good sized swath of trees were blown over and twisted.

If you look past the foreground, which isn't very interesting, you can see a large section of trees destroyed by the tornado.

Just a nice picture of the creek/river along the trail.

This trail was closed for several months due the tornados, where the trees and other debris were blocking the trail in several places. Thankfully, it reopened mid-summer, and so by December when John and I hiked, the trail was cleared. They did have to burn along some sections of the trail to remove the debris from the tornados.

Well, I hope you enjoy this little slice of my life, with a little tornado thrown in. I thought this would be nice since it has been a super warm here in Mississippi this winter, and when its a warm winter, you can expect dangerous storms, and tornados can occur.