Centreville Radar was equipped with an automatic camera that captured the radar display at short intervals. Shown here is a print made directly from the NOAA filmstrip showing the tornado southwest of and heading toward the station. A few days later, at NOAA’s request, I printed photos from each frame of the filmstrip in the darkroom of the Centreville Press. The red notations on this photo are added for clarity, courtesy of Ed Landry, a former radar operator at Centreville.
Illuminated only by a desk lamp and the green glow of the radar screen, Dale Black operates the controls at Centreville Radar. One end of the radar room was filled with the WSR-57 console shown here, the opposite end with a large map of Alabama. This photo was taken as Dale was investigating the storm that had developed to our southwest, near Demopolis.
Notations on storms were made on the radar screen with a grease pen. I made this photo as the line moved southeast across Alabama.
Bob Coe was at the teletype sending information to West Oxmoor regarding another storm when the tornado struck us at Centreville Radar. Minutes after this photo was taken, we felt an abrupt and dramatic drop in atmospheric pressure, and the fury of the storm as the tornado struck. Dale Black used a phone in this room, which somehow remained operational for a short time, to place a call to the Birmingham Weather Office telling them “We’ve been hit.”
The radar antenna was blown from the tower, landing about 20 feet from the room Dale Black and I had jumped into. The dome that covered the antenna had vanished.
This is the hallway inside the station. Dale, Bob, and I were standing here when the roof was torn away. The door directly ahead led to the reference and conference room. On the left was the door to the teletype room. On the right was the radar room. Behind and on the right was the office where we took refuge.
Over half of the weather station’s roof was peeled back and mangled.
This was the south-east corner of the weather station as seen minutes after the storm’s passing.
Photos below courtesy of:
J.B. Elliott
Roof of the weather office as seen from the radar tower
Inside east end of the weather office
[...] OLD CENTREVILLE RADAR SITE: Soon, look on the left and you will pass an historic Alabama weather location; the site of the old WSR-57 Centreville radar that scanned the Alabama sky for years before the NEXRAD system was installed at the Shelby County Airport. This installation was destroyed by the same tornado that ripped through downtown Brent May 27, 1973. [...]
[...] One church was demolished. My most favorite weatherman in the whole world, James Spann has a great link on his blog of the radar of the Brent tornado. The hook signature of a tornado is there as big as [...]
I remember at 17 year old riding through Brent the day after this tornado. Remember seeing police cars upside down and buildings leveled. Will never forget seeing a bath tub stuck in a stripped tree trunk. Living in Alabaster at the time my parents found a small Bible New Testament cover with the faded hand written ink “Brent”… wish we still had it. At that time neighbors reported leaves falling from the clouds.
Thanks for this site / Randy
I’m doing some research with a group on climate anomalies across the central part of the U.S. and 5/27/1973 was highlighted as an anomalous weather day. Thank you for preserving the photos of the Brent Tornado event, obviously the reason that 5/27/73 made the top-10.
Regards,
Suzanne Fortin
NWS Kansas City/Pleasant Hill