All Quiet for Now; Severe Threat Not Too Far Away
While it is all quiet across North/Central Alabama as we approach 2 pm and the opening of our severe weather threat window, Central and East Mississippi are covered in Tornado and Severe Thunderstorm Warnings. Unfortunately, that line of storms will be entering the western parts of the area within the next hour or two. The good news is that we are not seeing any discrete thunderstorms out ahead of the main action at this point.
Instability is starting to climb over the west and southwestern parts of the area, but instability potentially could be limited across the rest of the area as we could have cloud cover blocking most of the sunshine. The bad news is that we have a warm front working northward over the area, so we’ll see if enough instability can build for thunderstorm formation and maintenance.
There is no shortage of wind energy already across the area, and it will remain that way until the system completely passes through. Even with a low amount of instability, there is plenty of shear that could get any updrafts spinning and produce brief spin-up tornadoes along the main line of storms. The main item that we are watching for is formation of discrete cells ahead of the line, as those could become supercellular and produce tornadoes.
SPC continues the Moderate Risk for locations west of a line from Memphis (Pickens Co.) to Putnam (Marengo Co.). An Enhanced Risk is up north and east of the moderate risk to a line from Red Bay (Franklin Co.) to Carbon Hill (Walker Co.) to Orrville (Dallas Co.). A Slight Risk is up north and east of the enhanced risk to a line from Ardmore (Limestone Co.) to Springville (St. Clair Co.) to Eclectic (Elmore Co.) to Louisville (Barbour Co.). A Marginal Risk is up East of the slight risk and includes the rest of the area to the Alabama/Georgia state line.
A Tornado Watch continues until 7 pm this evening for Fayette, Greene, Hale, Lamar, Marengo, Marion, Pickens, Sumter, Tuscaloosa, Walker, and Winston counties in Central Alabama, and for Colbert, Franklin, Lauderdale, and Lawrence counties in North Alabama.
Category: Alabama's Weather, ALL POSTS, Severe Weather