A Late Night Look At Sunday’s Severe Storm Potential

Forecast still looks to be on track for the potential of severe storms throughout Central Alabama on Sunday afternoon through the evening and into the nighttime hours. The Storm Prediction Center continues an Enhanced Risk of severe storms (level 3 of 5) throughout the day on Sunday for locations south of a line from Fort Deposit to Tuskegee to Smiths, a Slight Risk (level 2 of 5) for locations south of a line from Geiger to Pelham to Heflin, and a Marginal Risk (level 1 of 5) north of that up to a line from Hamilton to Eva to Fort Payne.

A warm front will move north during the day on Sunday, and with an approaching cold front and a center of low pressure, we’ll have ingredients in place for stronger to severe storms. The warm front may stop its northward progress just south of the I-20 corridor before the low and cold front begin pushing it out of the area. South of the warm front, dewpoints will be in the mid-60s and instability values will be supportive of deep convection. Match that with decent shear and we have the potential for damaging thunderstorm wind gusts up to and over 60 MPH and a few tornadoes.

The latest run of the NAM continues to show the better values of instability and helicity over the southern portions of the area, with the highest values showing up around 3:00 pm. Significant tornado parameter is topping out at 3.5 at the same time over the same locations as well which is a little concerning. Any value over 1.0 means that conditions are there to support significant tornadoes.

The general timing of the severe storms continue to be from 12:00 pm to 9:00 pm across Central Alabama from northwest to southeast before the line pushes out and much colder air starts to filer in behind the cold front. Timing could change as the main line of storms and the cold front will transition from a more north to south orientation to a more flatter east to west orientation before exiting.

1.00-2.00 inches of rainfall is expected to fall across the area with the higher totals over the southern half of the area, but the good news is that rainfall will not be prolonged. With the saturated soils, we could see some brief flash flooding issues in the usual poor drainage areas. This rainfall may slow the recession of the river flooding issues, but it will not add to the problem.

We’ll be back bright and early with updates and the Weather Xtreme Video produced by Bill Murray. Have a great evening and God bless.

Category: Alabama's Weather, ALL POSTS, Severe Weather