A Brief Check On Our Weather Situation At 5:50 PM

Radar continues to show a line of strong to severe thunderstorms working slowly to the east across the northwestern parts of Alabama, down through the southern half of Mississippi, and over the southern half of Louisiana. It remains mighty active at 5:50 pm as there were seven active tornado warnings with four of those being observed by either the public or by trained storm spotters. There are also six active severe thunderstorm warnings across the southeast as well.

Unfortunately, we have already had a report of one fatality in Louisiana earlier today to go along with several reports of tornado touchdowns.

At this point, instability continues to rise over North/Central Alabama ahead of the line of storms with values now reaching as high as 1000 J/kg in the extreme southwestern parts of the area. Wind shear continues to climb with the western half of the area now topping out in the 45-65 knot range. Helicity values over the same locations are ranging from 300-850 m2s2 range with those higher numbers over the northwest corner of the state where an apparent tornado has touched down and caused some damage.

Significant tornado parameter values are topping out in the 1.0-2.0 range over the western portions of the area, and that is where we need to focus our attention as the line gets closer to the AL/MS state line in the west and southwestern parts of the area.

Movement of the line has really slowed down and timing has been adjusted to where the western and northwestern parts of the area will see the potential for strong to severe storms from now through 9:00 pm. The central parts of the area will see these storms from 8:00 pm to 1:00 am. The eastern and southeastern parts of the area will see these storms from 11:00 pm to 7:00 am. All of these times are estimates.

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