Zooming in on the Tuscaloosa tornado

>>> just some of these relentless images we have been watching from last night's series of storms. the tornadoes that cut across the south. we're going to take another look through an expert's eyes for an explanation of what is happening all the while inside these powerful storms. whether channel meteorologist brian norcross has more.

>> we knew this was going to be a very bad day . the meteorology was lining up, the atmosphere looked perfect for developing supercell thunderstorms that produce big tornadoes. what is schaapening right there is either debris or strong winds are shorting out power lines , and that's making the transformers explode. look at that car, just went past. there's a lesson, if you know there are tornadoes in the area, don't drive in your car. those people were just fantastically luckily. this is mother nature nearing her worst. look at this incred wedge tornado . you see the wedshape of it here. look at the debris. this is vaerp, very fast moving air. 100, 150, 200 miles an hour air. it's wrenching roofs, signs, anything that is loose. the real heavy stuff, as we see, tends to fall out, but lighter stuff can get carried, 10, 20, 100 miles ahead of the storm. i don't remember ever seeing so many shots of these extremely powerful tornadoes with winds maybe in the 200 mile an hour range coming out of the south as we have seen this year. in spite of the fact that you really can't tell that the storm is moving through this frame, it is. it's zooming through densely populated tuscaloosa, alabama. here's the same tornado from a different angle, and it looks like it's right on top of this guy. it's actually not a good thing that he was this close to it and shooting. this is like watching a hurricane come ashore. we know when we see it happening that people are going to die.

>> brian norcross, absolutely correct at the weather channel . too dangerous there, but this tragedy has also given us this video that can be studied of these things up close. brian also points out, as we should tell you, the tornadoes have served to debunk a couple massive urban myths . number one, that tornadoes don't hit cities or urban areas . the other is tornadoes don't go into the mountains. as we have seen in the last 24 hours , these tornadoes have