SEC Tourney Tornado

Who says weather can’t impact an indoor event? Just 3 weeks ago, a heavy rain storm ripped a hole at the Alexander Memorial Field house on the campus of Georgia Tech. The leaky roof caused the Yellow Jacket-UVA basketball game to be postponed due to a wet court.

Then Friday night around 9:30, a freak thunderstorm passed thru metro Atlanta during overtime of the Alabama-Miss State game. This was the opening game of the night time session of the SEC quarterfinals and roughly a half hour before the scheduled start of the UK Wildcats- Georgia Bulldogs game.

My best guess as of 10:30 PM is that a high wind storm with a funnel cloud accompanied the passage of a squall line. Sportscaster Tim Brando said “I have been in a tornado before. What I heard was a tornado. The roar of the train was apparent”.

I personally want to stress that straight line high winds also create the roar of the train sound effect, so there is no guarantee what hit was a tornado. But I am reading of windows blown out near the Georgia dome. I am also including a radar depiction of the storm that I found on the Internet. It's a good bet a tornado was close by to the dome.

Indeed, a tornado warming was issued by the National Weather Service for Fulton County Georgia which included the Georgia dome area. From what I am hearing, people are safe in the Georgia dome though some minor damage has been incurred as the “ tornado wannabee” passed.

Keith Morehouse tells me Patrick Patterson's mom e-mailed him and said "it was scary". Here at 12 AM, the pictures I am seeing of water flowing inside the CNN center and Georgia dome suggest the wind was strong enough to rip holes big structures. No doubt winds in excess of 70 miles per hour.

To see the radar, scroll down after calling up this sight.

http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?p=170221#post170221