A Quick Morning Look at the Alabama Severe Weather Situation

We have a batch of showers moving across Central Alabama this morning, ahead of the main event which will come this afternoon ahead of a cold front. The heavier showers were from southern Walker county to west of Birmingham to west of Calera in Shelby County. They will be moving through the Birmingham Metro over the next hour with some moderate rain, but no thunder.

The main line of storms extends from west of Corinth MS to Holly Springs to west of Cleveland MS to west of Greenville MS and then back into Louisiana where it becomes more broken back into the Shreveport area and on into East Texas.

A severe thunderstorm watch remains in effect for southeastern Arkansas, northern Louisiana and much of northern Louisiana into southern Tennessee. It is in effect until noon.

Ahead of the line, there is very little instability in Mississippi, with the best CAPE values back in Louisiana and East Texas. The radar reflects that two with some discrete cells across northern Louisiana. There is a decent inflow of warm, moist air into the region ahead of the line of showers and storms. Dewpoints are in the middle and upper 60s over Louisiana and climbing through the lower 60s over Southwest Mississippi. Those richer dewpoints will have a hard time working in here later today and it looks like our instability will be modest and decreasing with time.

The best upper level dynamic are definitely to the north of Alabama. Winds at 850 mb, or about 5,000 feet will be decreasing as we head through the day.

The best chance for severe weather today will be from Northeast Louisiana across much of Mississippi and into West Central and Northwest Alabama where the SPC has posted their standard Slight Risk severe weather outlook.

Storms should gradually increase in intensity through the morning hours to our west and will work into Alabama starting around noon. The band of storms will impact Northwest Alabama between 12:00 noon and 3:00 p.m… much of Central Alabama, including places like Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, Anniston, and Gadsden between 2 and 5:00 p.m… and then communities like Montgomery and Auburn between 4 and 7 p.m., although by then the storms should be weaker and below severe limits.

This is a fairly low end severe weather threat. But, heavier storms in the line could produce strong straight line winds and hail. The tornado threat is very low, but not zero.

We’re likely to see a severe thunderstorm watch later today that could include western Alabama and there will be a few warnings this afternoon.

We will be actively covering the situation constantly through the day here on AlabamaWX, so monitor us for the latest thinking and up to the second warnings.

Category: ALL POSTS, Severe Weather