As part of a two day event, with severe weather stretching from Texas to North Carolina and heavy snowfall across the center of the country, central Alabama experienced a wide range of severe weather on Christmas Day. Late Christmas Eve, a well amplified upper level trough dug into the southern plains. In response, a surface low developed Christmas morning over southern Texas. As the upper low deepened it tilted negatively and helped to deepen the surface low as it moved eastward. By Christmas afternoon, a swath of severe weather swept across the deep south, with discrete supercells and a broken line of thunderstorms in trail. These thunderstorms moved across east Texas, Louisiana, south Mississippi during the afternoon hours, and then into south and central Alabama during the evening hours, bringing with them strong straight line winds, numerous tornadoes, as well as flooding. The tornado accounts below are specifically for the counties of central Alabama.

See charts and more information from the NWS here.

Click here for information specific to Pike County.