From my husband John Knox (also a meteorologist) who grew up in Birmingham AL, in a recent Facebook post, including photos from AL.com:
“27 years ago Tuesday, a terrible tornado in Huntsville, Alabama. November is the time of a secondary peak in tornado activity in the Southeast, climatologically speaking. This is because the ingredients for tornadoes–including lift from fronts, and vertical wind shear from the jet stream overhead–are present. But that’s climatology. This November, the jet stream is in Canada, not over Alabama, and the fronts that do come through Alabama are dry, thanks in part to the severe-to-exceptional drought in much of Alabama. It was a different time. Many of the fatalities were in vehicles–the tornado hit clogged roads during rush hour.”
https://photos.al.com/alphotos/4558/gallery/nov15_1989_huntsville_airport_/index.html#/9
