A Quick Mid-Afternoon Check On Our Weather Situation

At 2:10 pm, much of the scattered shower and thunderstorm activity lies south of the I-59/20 corridor while there is one lone shower over the northeastern parts of Morgan County. All of these continue to push off to the east at 20-25 MPH. a few of these are producing plenty of lightning. If you can hear thunder, move indoors immediately. You are close enough to the parent thunderstorm to be struck by lightning. When thunder roars, go indoors.

As far as the threat of strong to severe storms for the rest of your Wednesday and throughout the overnight hours on early Thursday morning, the forecast still looks to be on track at this point.

For North and Central Alabama today, the latest update from the Storm Prediction Center shows a Slight Risk for most locations north of the I-59 corridor while most locations along and south of that are under a Marginal Risk for severe storms through 7:00 am Thursday morning.

We are currently in the first time period for the potential of strong to severe storms will come this afternoon through the early evening hours (now to 7:00 pm) across all of Central Alabama. During this time, NWS Birmingham has a Marginal Risk for severe storms up for the entire area with isolated damaging downburst wind gusts up to 60 MPH and hail up to nickel size in diameter as the main threats. These storms will be scattered in nature but should quickly die off as we lose the daytime heating.

The second time period for the potential of strong to severe storms will come during the overnight hours roughly from 1:00 am to 7:00 am on Thursday morning. An MCS will be moving through Mississippi during the evening and late night hours and will eventually move into the western parts of the area around 1:00 am. This is where the Slight Risk comes into play as bowing line segments will have the potential of damaging thunderstorm wind gusts up to 60 MPH as the main threat, along with a smaller threat of hail. The NAM shows the MCS dissipating somewhat during the overnight hours but I believe it may stay together a little longer than shown due to the wind fields over the area along with instability staying higher. It will be out of the area by 7:00 am.

The third time period for the potential of strong to severe storms will come during the afternoon through the late night hours on Thursday, roughly from 12:00 pm to 11:00 pm. The boundary that will be left over from the MCS will be the catalyst for scattered to numerous convective storms to develop with the main heating of the day. Isolated damaging downburst wind gusts up to 60 MPH and hail up to golf ball size in diameter will be the main threats. There will be a non-zero threat of a brief isolated tornado or two during this stretch as well, but lower level shear will not be all that strong so it will be very difficult for one to spin up.

I’ll continue to keep you updated throughout the day. If any warnings or advisories are issued for North or Central Alabama, they will be automatically posted to the blog. If a watch is issued, NWS Birmingham stated in their briefing earlier this morning that, more than likely, it would be a severe thunderstorm watch. With any of these storms, rain could be heavy at times but should be moving at a fast enough pace that flash flooding issues will be unlikely.

I’ll be back in a couple of hours with another update unless we have some stronger to severe storms develop.

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