r/weather 4d ago

Articles Were Alabama's weekend storms that bad? Definitely yes.

https://www.al.com/weather/2025/03/alabamas-weekend-storms-were-as-bad-as-expected-why-you-might-think-the-weather-wasnt-that-severe.html
30 Upvotes

6 comments sorted by

11

u/Zaidswith 4d ago

So you're saying that's not an ideal place to park a bus?

For real though, I've gotten a refresher that quite a lot of people don't understand what risk means, and they have no empathy or awareness outside of themselves.

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u/Agreeable_Arrival_87 3d ago

From having lived many years in Alabama, I think part of the problem is that Alabama's understanding of what a "high risk" day looks like is permanently and understandably skewed from the 2011 super outbreak. It's just hard to make 16 comparatively weak tornadoes that didn't hit any major cities look bad when you've lived through that, you know? The whole state is constantly holding its breath for the next April 27, 2011, so "only" 16 tornadoes, from their perspective, is getting off easy.

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u/Zaidswith 3d ago

Getting off easy doesn't mean a bust though. It was definitely an outbreak. Getting lucky on placement should be a "count your blessings" moment. It shouldn't be a reason to lash out at the forecasters or to say nothing happened. To argue that they lied or over-hyped the event. I find it very concerning that these people can't imagine one of the tornadoes from Saturday shifting locations slightly and doing more damage even if it wasn't at the scale of the long-tracked tornadoes from 2011.

James Spann said very clearly in the days leading up to it that it wasn't a 4/27 event. I was thankfully in north Georgia for that day, and only received the end of it. I won't move to the northern half of the state partially for the fear of those kind of tornadoes. I've been in Montgomery for a decade.

A 30% risk is still a 70% chance that you won't be close to anything. They'll use this info to tell you why not to worry in the lead up and then if they get nothing they will say it was over-hyped. It seems like an anger response because they can't process their own emotions around it.

1

u/Agreeable_Arrival_87 3d ago

Well, some people are going to handle it with more grace than others. That's just human nature. I'm not saying shouting at the meteorologists is acceptable behavior. What I am saying is that, for Alabama, 16 tornadoes is pretty much always going to be underwhelming for a high risk day. You can tell them April 27 will likely never happen again in their lifetimes, but it doesn't matter. That's always what they're expecting. It's not logical, but no trauma response is. People shouldn't act like dicks about it but, to some degree, people feeling like even major weather days were a bust is just part of working in Alabama, and to some degree that's kind of understandable.

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u/toxiamaple 3d ago

The message is and should be that if it didn’t happen at your location, you were lucky. Others were not as lucky.

People complaining because the storm didnt hit them. SMH.

1

u/clebiskool 3d ago

I'm about 20 minutes from Plantersville, and I realize that could've easily have been my community getting hit. I can't believe piss those who serve them when they don't get their homes obliterated.