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Flash Flood Watch Issued for Northwest Alabama

| December 22, 2011 @ 9:12 am

A tornado watch continues for much of eastern Mississippi this morning.

The NWS has issued a flash flood watch for northwestern Alabama, including:

Fayette, Lamar, Marion, Pickens, Walker and Winston Counties till 6:00 PM CST.

Heavy rain is setting up north of a warm front that extends from Jacksonville to Birmingham to north of Meridian back to a low pressure center southwest of Jackson MS. This heavy rain and embedded thunder will continue for the next several hours. One to two inches of rain could fall by this evening in this area.

The front will continue trying to move northward through the day, but it will find the going tough as it runs into the rain cooled air to the north. It may make it as far north as a line from Guin to Decatur to Scottsboro

Thunderstorms could become strong to severe along and south of this front today. The airmass over South Central Alabama is quite juicy, with dewpoints around 66F. Notice the temperature/dewpoint at Montgomery (70F/66F) versus Tupelo (46F/46F).

Despite the mild temps and juicy dewpoints, there still isn’t much surface based instability even over South Central Alabama, but that will change as the lower levels of the atmosphere heat up a bit this morning and early this afternoon and cooler air aloft moves in from the west with an approaching upper level system.

We also note decent wind shear over Mississippi, that will push into Alabama in the next few hours, and that could allow any storms that develop to become organized.

So, we do expect strong to severe storms today south of that line from Marion to Morgan to Jackson Counties, but mainly south of I-20. The best chances will be over South Central Alabama from Marengo to Chilton to Clay and Randolph Counties.

Stay close to a reliable source for severe weather watch and warning information at all times today and be ready to put your personal severe weather plan into action if a warning is issued.

Category: Alabama's Weather, Severe Weather

About the Author ()

Bill Murray is the President of The Weather Factory. He is the site's official weather historian and a weekend forecaster. He also anchors the site's severe weather coverage. Bill Murray is the proud holder of National Weather Association Digital Seal #0001 @wxhistorian

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