A Quick Check on Our Conditions Before As We Enter the Late-Night Hours

As of 8:45 pm, we continue to have clusters of rain and thunderstorms moving northeastward across North/Central Alabama. None of the activity is severe at the moment, but we continue to be under a threat from now through 5:00 am from northwest to southeast.

A Tornado Watch continues until 1:00 am for Colbert, Cullman, DeKalb, Franklin, Jackson, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limestone, Madison, Marshall, Morgan counties in North Alabama, and for Bibb, Blount, Etowah, Fayette, Greene, Hale, Jefferson, Lamar, Marion, Pickens, Shelby, St. Clair, Sumter, Tuscaloosa, Walker, Winston counties in Central Alabama.

We have decent instability over the western half of the area, mainly at or above 500 J/kg… but, we also have a cap in place that are keeping these storms below strong to severe criteria at the moment. Over the next few hours, some of that cap will erode away and will potentially allow some of the storms to become stronger. We have plenty of bulk wind shear in place, and helicity values are high enough that there is the potential for a few rotating updrafts.

The latest Updraft Helicity Tracks forecast from the HRRR agrees with those numbers and shows that rotating updrafts will be possible throughout the rest of the night and the overnight hours until much of the main activity moves out at 5:00 am.

Significant Tornado Parameters off of the same HRRR model run has the highest values happening between 9 pm through 11 pm then drop off substantially after that. This just shows that there is the potential for a tornado or two throughout the event.

Hopefully, the CAP holds and we won’t have to worry about any bad storms but stay weather aware throughout the night.

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