Strong Storms In NW Alabama, Action Ramping Up To Our West

Scott Martin | March 9, 2019 @ 2:09 pm

Some strong storms have now pushed into the northwestern parts of the area as of 1:50 pm with plenty of lightning and a good bit of rainfall. Some of these could easily produce wind gusts up to 40-50 MPH. All of these storms are racing off to the northeast at or just over 60 MPH. Nothing severe at the moment, but storms are starting to show some signs of rotation in the northern parts of Mississippi.

A Tornado Watch is now being discussed with NWS Huntsville and NWS Birmingham and should be issued soon.

Another Tornado Watch has just been issued for the central parts of Mississippi and back into the extreme southeastern parts of Arkansas and the extreme northeastern parts of Louisiana until 9:00 pm CST.

Latest run of the HRRR continues to show Significant Tornado Parameters maxing out over 5.0 in the northwestern parts of the state around 5:00 pm tonight. Instability values are modeled to be over 1200-1600 J/kg in nearly the same locations. Helicity values are really high on the same locations as well, topping out over 450 m2s2.

Conditions are favorable for supercell development and rotating updrafts which could easily lead to tornado development. These locations match up with what the Storm Prediction Center has been showing all morning long. And with these deterioating conditions occurring, SPC has expanded the Enhanced Risk further to the east to now include locations west of a line from Millport to just west of Jasper to Hartselle to Ardmore. The Slight and Marginal Risk locations remain unchanged from the previous updates.

Once again… Now is the time to have your plan of safety, safety kit, and safe place ready to go in case your location goes under a warning. If you live in a mobile/manufactured home and you are in a tornado warning polygon, you MUST leave and take shelter in a more sturdy structure or a storm shelter. Have your cellphones fully charged and fresh batteries in your portable radios and your NOAA WeatherRadio. We’ll keep you updated throughout the event.

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

About the Author (Author Profile)

Scott Martin is an operational meteorologist, professional graphic artist, musician, husband, and father. Not only is Scott a member of the National Weather Association, but he is also the Central Alabama Chapter of the NWA president. Scott is also the co-founder of Racecast Weather, which provides forecasts for many racing series across the USA. He also supplies forecasts for the BassMaster Elite Series events including the BassMaster Classic.