An Update To Our Weather Situation at 2:20 AM CST

The line of showers and storms along the cold front haven’t really seemed to strengthen any over the past couple of hours. According to the latest Mesoscale Discussion from the Storm Prediction Center is that a watch being issued is unlikely due to the marginal risk for a threat of severe weather. However, the threat is still there for strong to locally damaging winds and perhaps a brief tornado ahead of the cold front for at least the next several hours.

The cold front is currently draped from just east of Cleveland, Tennessee, back to the west-southwest across northern Alabama and back into north-central Mississippi and northern Louisiana. The squall line associated with the front stretches from the northwestern corner of Walker County in Alabama, back to Natchitoches, Louisiana. As of now, no watches or warnings are in effect for anyone along or ahead of this squall line. Looks like a well-needed rainfall for the parched southeast.

It is unclear at this time if any of the storms can become surface-based even with the low-levels becoming moistened substantially over the past few hours. There is still some capping in place, and that is detrimental to lift ahead of the front. If that capping erodes, then storms may grow stronger to severe levels, and one or two could produce a tornado. Right now, it’s just a wait and see game.

The squall line should arrive in the Birmingham and Tuscaloosa metropolitan areas by 3:00AM, and be well south of that by 5:00AM. The latest HRRR model trend has the line completely out of the area between 10:00AM-11:00AM. After that skies will begin to clear out and should be a bright and sunny day across Central Alabama.

We’ll keep you updated throughout the night and the early morning hour. Remember that we are also on Facebook and on Twitter.

Category: Alabama's Weather, Severe Weather