North-central Alabama Tornado
At approximately 1:00 am CST (0700 UTC), the broken squall line that had affected Oklahoma and Missouri entered the state of Alabama. Individual supercell storms began to develop ahead of the squall line along the Alabama–Mississippi border due to the strengthening of the upper level jet stream. A supercell that developed over Starkville, Mississippi and tracked over Lamar, Marion and Fayette Counties in Alabama spawned a tornado in Lawrence County, Alabama at 3:02 am CST (0902 UTC). The tornado touched down at Pinhook near the William B. Bankhead National Forest. Many houses were damaged or destroyed, and a church was leveled. Three fatalities, all from a single family, were reported north of Aldrich Grove. An elderly woman was also killed by the storm, and 20–25 others were injured. The tornado was initially classified as an EF3, although it was upgraded to EF4 in later analysis. The hardest hit communities were the towns of Wren, Speake and Five Points. The tornado moved into Morgan County and threatened the Decatur area, leading the NWS in Huntsville to issue a tornado emergency (the fifth for the outbreak) for Morgan County and southern Limestone County. The tornado lifted off the ground before reaching Decatur. The same supercell moved over the Huntsville Metro area, though no tornadoes were reported.
Read more about this topic: 2008 Super Tuesday Tornado Outbreak
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—Stephen Collins Foster (1826–1864)
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