Tornado Watch for South Alabama til 7 a.m.

The SPC and local NWS offices have collaborated on a tornado watch (number 3 of the year) that will go until 7 a.m. CST. It includes much of southeastern Louisiana, southern Mississippi, southern Alabama and the Florida Panhandle.

Winds gusted to 49 mph at the Shuttlesworth Birmingham International Airport at 7:41 p.m. Widespread gusts of 30-45 mph are occurring across the state of Alabama at this hour.

Power outages are growing across the area. Alabama Power is reporting 431 outages affecting 16,254 customers at this time. 4,300 are n the Birmingham area and 5,100 in Tuscaloosa County. Those numbers will grow over the next several hours.

There have been several trees reported down in places like Dutton, Mentone, and Pisgah in NE Alabama. Glenwood Fire in NE Jefferson County is reporting a tree down on Castle Heights Rd at Castle Drive. Corner reported a large tree down on County Line Road and Trammel Road in northern Jefferson County.

Radar shows widespread moderate to heavy rain across the northern two thirds of Alabama. There is some lightning and thunder, but no strong or severe storms.

Heavy rain and thunderstorms are over Central Mississippi between Meridian and Jackson. Those will be moving into West Central Alabama over the next couple of hours.

The main line of storms extends from near Jackson MS to east of Natchez to east of Opelousas along I-49 in Louisiana. No warnings in effect right now anywhere across Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama.

The maritime warm front is over Southeast Louisiana, and offshore of Alabama and Mississippi. It will have to come on shore for there to be severe weather of any consequence. That is expected to happen later tonight.

The line of storms is now 142 miles west of Sumter County. It is moving east at 34 mph, putting it into West Central Alabama around 1 a.m. It should reach Southwest Alabama’s Washington and Mobile Counties in about 5 hours, or about 2 a.m.

We will be providing frequent updates through the night. Make sure your apps are set to bypass your do not disturb if you are retiring for the night. Have your weatheradio handy and in alert mode.

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