Severe Thunderstorm Watch Until 1:00 AM Coming Soon For Northwest Alabama

The Storm Prediction Center has released a Mesoscale Discussion that will affect the northwestern parts of Alabama, along with western and middle Tennessee, and northern Mississippi. Looks like a severe weather watch will be issued soon.

FROM NWS Huntsville: NWS Huntsville says watch will be a severe thunderstorm watch until 1:00AM. They are coordinating a severe thunderstorm watch with SPC for our northwest counties. Dew points have mixed out into the 50s across MS and AL, keeping instability down a bit and LCLs high. So damaging winds are the main threat in the near term, though there is still the possibility of brief tornadoes later on depending on how quickly dew points increase after sunset and how strong the line is at that point.

Here is the discussion…

Areas affected…Western and middle Tennessee into northern Mississippi and northwestern Alabama

Concerning…Severe potential…Watch likely

Probability of Watch Issuance…80 percent

SUMMARY…Thunderstorm activity accompanied primarily by a risk for potentially damaging wind gusts will overspread the region through the 9-11 PM CDT time frame.

DISCUSSION…A broken pre-frontal line of thunderstorms is in the process of progressing east of the Mississippi River, where the boundary layer remains drier with dew points generally in the lower/mid 50s. With an upstream cold front continuing to surge through what is left of a plume of higher surface moisture content near/west of the Mississippi River, little further low-level moistening seems likely prior to the passage of the convective line (aside from from some surface dew point increases with the loss of daytime heating/mixing). It is possible, though, that present weak instability and forcing for ascent may be enough to maintain fairly vigorous convective development into the 02-04Z time. As long as storms maintain some strength, in the presence of 40-50 kt deep layer mean flow, a risk for potentially damaging wind gusts will probably continue.

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