Becky e-mails that The Weather Channel "is telling people in western Nashville suburbs to take cover." That would be because of the tornado warning for central Cheatham County. And that line of storms is headed our way. "Methinks it’ll be one helluva night," Becky writes. Indeed.

UPDATE: The big Dogwood Arts Parade in downtown Knoxville, scheduled for 7pm tonight, has been postponed to next Friday April 25 due to the approaching line of storms.

Digging through some old computer files, looking for job-related stuff, I stumbled upon a text file titled “message to drudge - katrina,” dated Friday, August 26, 2005, at 10:23 PM. That would be about 8 1/2 hours after my oft-quoted “New Orleans in peril” post (i.e., the one I read aloud in Spike Lee’s movie), less than a half-hour after my post titled “Models ‘cluster’ on near-worst-case track” — which accompanied the final westward shift of the National Hurricane Center’s official forecast track, which ended up being almost exactly accurate even though it was ~60 hours out — and an hour before my frequently referenced “get the hell out” post.

Even as all that was going on, the Drudge Report was still focused on the possibility of another Florida landfall (recall that the Sunshine State had been hit by six hurricanes in the preceding 14 months or so, including Katrina’s first landfall on the peninsula), and much of the media was following suit, focusing on the Florida panhandle instead of the looming New Orleans doomsday scenario, despite the clear change in the forecast over the preceding 12 hours. Exasperated, I wrote to Drudge using his anonymous tips form thingy. I don’t think I’ve ever published my message before, and I thought it might be of some mild interest, so I’ve posted it after the jump.

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That’s a healthy-looking line of thunderstorms that’s headed our way.

Here’s the live TV broadcast from last night’s Alabama-Mississippi State game as a possible tornado struck the Georgia Dome:

It just goes to show that the SEC is a war. ;)

Close-up view of the moment the storm hit here. And here’s a video taken by a fan in the stands.

Dr. Jeff Masters: “The death toll from the 2008 Super Tuesday Tornado Outbreak makes it the deadliest tornado outbreak in the past 23 years.”

And it’s the deadliest tornado outbreak this early on the calendar since 1949.

The death toll is at least 54.

As Dr. Masters’s map demonstrates, East Tennessee was spared. By the time the thunderstorms got here around 8:00 AM this morning, they were producing only torrential rains, gusty winds and lightning — nothing too terrible. Later in the day, after the cold front that produced the storms had moved through, we got (and are still getting) some pretty strong winds on the back side of the system, causing the Tennessee River to look rather choppy from the parking garage where I park for work:

But yeah, no tornadoes or anything similarly devastating, thank goodness.

In West Tennessee (see also here) and Middle Tennessee, of course, it’s an entirely different story.

Holy crap.

Earlier, 86 people were injured in Jackson, and there were reportedly fatalities; don’t know how many yet. Two Union University dorms were almost completely destroyed. This is getting totally overshadowed by the election (which it also affected), but it is a HUGE deal.

UPDATE: More here from the Memphis paper.

What an absolutely nutty night if you’re working for a newspaper in Tennessee, particularly West or Middle Tennessee.

Barack Obama is opening a Knoxville headquarters at 5:00 PM today. It may open with a bang; severe thunderstorms are expected this afternoon.

Up until now, Obama’s only Tennessee HQs were in Nashville and Memphis. Hillary Clinton’s only TN headquarters at the moment is in Nashville. The only candidate to visit East Tennessee so far is John Edwards, who was in Chattanooga yesterday.

Meanwhile, one of Obama’s main organizers in the Knoxville area is named Rebecca Loy. Not my Rebecca Loy (though she likes Obama too), but someone else by the same name. Weird!

…my photos of today’s snow squall in downtown Knoxville:

Full gallery here.

A pretty decent snow squall is moving through downtown Knoxville right now. (See also here.) I ran outside a few minutes ago and took some pictures, including several of snow falling in front of the Sunsphere. You don’t see that too often. :) I’ll post ‘em later. Anyway, a light dusting is accumulating on some grassy surfaces, but the roads look fine.

UPDATE: Here’s an article about the afternoon snow. And here are my photos.

A surprise freezing-rain storm caught East Tennessee off guard yesterday, causing hundreds of fender-benders and some serious accidents, two of them deadly. It was so bad in the early morning hours that police cars and firetrucks were themselves getting into accidents while trying to drive to the scene of other accidents. (Clearly, these Southerners don’t know how to handle winter weather. :) At one point, I heard a report on the radio that an ambulance had flipped over on its roof with a passenger inside — but not to worry, more ambulances were on their way!

Before long, TV and radio anchors were busily putting out the first responders’ urgent pleas to "stay off the roads if you can." As for those who had to drive, police asked them to please refrain from calling 9-1-1 about any accidents that didn’t involve injuries. If they got into a fender-bender that caused damage to property only, motorists were told to just take down each other’s insurance information and go on their way. Even so, the Knoxville Police and Knox County Sheriff’s office responded to a combined 362 car crashes yesterday, most of them between 6:00 and 9:00 AM or thereabouts. Here’s some video of the chaos:

Many schools and businesses announced delays and closures at the last minute; in some cases, school buses had already started their rounds when school was cancelled. This led to a classic case of "fighting the last war" this morning, as nearly every school district in the area had already announced a two-hour delay by the 6:00 PM news last night — delays which proved utterly unnecessary in most of the Knoxville area, as the roads this morning were perfectly safe.

Myself, I ventured out into yesterday’s icy mess with no concept of how bad it was, as it wasn’t very icy at all in my apartment complex. I didn’t even slip once while walking the dog! I noticed a wee bit of ice on the Camry, and I overheard somebody talking on his cell phone about "UT being closed," but I didn’t think much of it. I made it to the dentist’s office for my 8:30 AM appointment withuot incident — only to discover that the office was closed because of the weather. (If I’d called ahead, I would have known that from their voicemail. D’oh!)

I then got a call from a co-worker relating our boss’s directive that we should feel free to stay home until the roads improve. My dentist’s office is about halfway between home and work, so I sat indecisively in the parking lot for a while — but then I gathered from the radio that things were still quite bad downtown (where I work), so I decided to turn tail and head home. Long story short, the icy weather meant I got to spend a good chunk of the morning with my baby instead of at work. So I have no complaints. :)

UPDATE: Here’s a photo of some icy branches with the Sunsphere in the background:

Man, I miss South Bend. Not.

Actually, we got a little snow here on New Year’s Day. When I went out to retrieve the car seat from the Camry so that it could warm up in our hospital room overnight, there were some legit snowflakes falling. No accumulation, though. But it’s been cold as all get-out, at least by southern standards: 22 degrees right now, up from a low of 12. Our heater is working overtime trying to keep things warm enough for little Loyette (who, incidentally, is swaddled and sleeping in my lap as I type this, and looking totally adorable, I might add… aww).

So much for the 2007 hurricane season ending with — or the 2008 season beginning with — an unexpected subtropical storm. Invest 95L, the storm that could have become either Pablo or Arthur, has fizzled.

Hurricane season has been “officially” over for almost a month now, but Alan Sullivan notices a borderline tropical-ish storm out in the eastern Atlantic that the National Hurricane Center has apparently chosen not to name. He agrees with the decision to keep the storm nameless. He also compares it with Tropical Storm Zeta, which formed on my wedding day two years ago — and which, I gather, Sullivan believes was an example of NHC count-padding. Whatever. If nothing else, Zeta made for an interesting footnote to my own personal history. (And hey, maybe the NHC will belatedly name this one, too, and the baby will be born on the same day. Wouldn’t that be something?)

P.S. FWIW, Pablo would be the name. (Of the storm, not the baby.)

UPDATE: Right on cue…

A SURFACE LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM CENTERED OVER THE EASTERN ATLANTIC OCEAN ABOUT 950 MILES SOUTHWEST OF THE AZORES HAS BEEN GRADUALLY ACQUIRING SOME SUBTROPICAL CHARACTERISTICS DURING THE PAST DAY OR SO. THIS SYSTEM HAS BEEN PRODUCING GALE-FORCE WINDS…MAINLY TO THE NORTH AND EAST OF ITS CIRCULATION CENTER…AND IT COULD BECOME A SUBTROPICAL STORM LATER TODAY OR TOMORROW AS IT REMAINS NEARLY STATIONARY.

I said before that “Pablo would be the name,” but actually, that depends on when the storm is named. If it doesn’t get a name until after midnight on January 1, it would be Arthur — the first storm of the 2008 season.

UPDATE 2: Dr. Jeff Masters has more on proto-Pablo/Arthur, as does the Miami Herald.

Olga strengthens — over land. Didn’t see that one coming.

Subtropical Storm Olga is making landfall in the Dominican Republic, and will soon fall apart over the mountains there. Alan Sullivan is unimpressed: “This indignity is a fitting close to the 2007 season. Olga did not properly earn a name.” Regardless, major flash flooding is possible.