Afternoon Forecast Discussion

Some quick thoughts from the Weather Center this afternoon as we wait and watch…

*Thanks to Jason and Ashley for working the dreaded overnight shift. During extended threats of severe weather, you have to rotate your personnel so nobody will be burned out!

*Additional development is possible this afternoon, especially over Northeast Alabama…. east of I-65, and north of I-20.

*Here are some midday notes from the Birmingham NWS office, from our IM conference (in short note form)

the cap has lifted significantly and is much much smaller

cap now is around 650mb
very unstable in the below 650 and above 650
giving us a CAPE of around 1800 J/Kg
LI = -7.6

that is with a surface temp of 75 and td of 61
right now we are sitting at 73 over 64

I think they have the watch in a pretty good place…we are watching the upper level wave coming in from MEM area

see all of the convection
in western tn
as it dives south – that is the firing mechanism

only issue I see is a significant surface lifting mechanism
now with the sun coming out…I really see us going conditionally unstable throughout the entire column

we have updated our HWO map that goes beyond their watch
https://www.srh.noaa.gov/bmx/hwo/index.php

winds will most likely keeping veering with time…allowing more of a speed shear threat

really interesting to see the upper levels so unstable (above 600) – the CAPE aloft is 300 J/Kg

that means really LARGE hail

*Bottom line is that more severe weather is possible this afternoon… so stay tuned…

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