Violent severe weather outbreak....
>> Saturday, April 24, 2010
...sure looks to be on tap today for portions of the Lower Mississippi Valley, Deep South, Tennessee Valley, and many surrounding areas. The Storm Prediction has gone ahead and pulled the trigger on a 'high' risk of severe weather for portions of Mississippi and Alabama today. In any given year, there are normally only a couple of 'high' risk days. The last 'high' risk day was way back in June of last year.
As I am typing this just before 7am eastern time, the airmass is already quite unstable across much of Mississippi. That unstable air will advect northeastward into Alabama and portions of Tennessse and Georgia as the day unfolds. This could very well wind up being a scenario where multiple waves of rain and storms roll through the moderate and high risk areas today.
Large hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes are all possible in the areas outlined in today's severe weather outlook. And, it looks like the atmosphere might very well wind up being supporting of long-track, strong tornadoes in some instances.
Everyone in the areas outlined above need to have a reliable way of hearing weather watches and warning today into tonight. And this has been discussed in many other places already, but there are thousands of people camping at Talladega Superspeedway in eastern Alabama. Everyone there needs to have a plan of action in the event shelter needs to be sought.
For the Carolinas, the scenario is a bit more muddy. We will likely see some showers at times today and tonight, and as time unfolds, some strong to severe storms could be involved. The threat here is not as great as locations to the west, but some strong to severe storms are certainly possible late today into tonight.
Below is the Craven significant severe weather parameter....the first two images are valid late today into this evening, the third image is valid late tomorrow morning as the instability continues to spread into the Carolinas. All charts are based off of the 0z NAM. On the Craven chart, typically values in excess of 20 indicate a significant severe weather risk.
12 comments:
Hi Mathew. Could you please explain why our area (Charlotte) seems to always be tricky to forcast when it comes to severe weather or even winter weather for that matter. It seems that other areas are cut and dry.Forcasters can pinpoint what the weather entails ahead of time, but for us it's always a waiting game to see what pops up. Is it because of us being fairly close to the mountains? Thank you for all that you do!
The mountains are a large part of the reason for sure. Dealing with wedges and stable air banked of against the mountains, and how quickly that air can get replaced more unstable air in severe weather scenarios, is not something that is normally handled well by computer models.
In today's scenario, the overall synoptic setup will not be as explosive here as it is in the Deep South, but there are still a lot of the parameters in place. So, our severe threat will largely depend on how well the convection upstream holds together as it moves in.
Hope that helps a bit...
Yes! Thank you.
Large Tornado in Yazoo City, MS. It does not look good for them. Scares me that its only 130 and storms are getting really bad. Here in Atlanta, a good storm just rolled through, now some clearing and I have noticed temps are going up a bit. Not to mention it is feeling more humid. It must be the secondary warm front?
Ryan in Atlanta.
Stay safe down there in ATL Ryan!! Looks like you guys are next in line.
Thanks Tar Heel! I am trying. LOL. Right now clouds and rain are keeping temps at bay.... but warm front is moving NE and rain is about to break. Looks like after the hours between 5pm and day break could be busy. Do you agree?
Ryan
I agree... Unfortunately it looks like ATL and CLT will see the bulk of the severe weather overnight when everyone's sleeping. ATL probably won't be out of the woods until early tomorrow morning... Dangerous stuff for sure.
The tornadoes down in Mississippi are massive. One was 3/4 of a mile wide. Hope they lose their steam before causing any more damage.
Yeah that's what I am thinking. Although I am more worried about Atlanta then Charlotte. Not because I live here, but because, the big storms wont reach there until after midnight. Storms here will approach before 8pm. Charlotte main focus tonight should be more along the lines of damaging winds. And a few isolated tornadoes mostly to the west of Hwy 321. That's just my two sense. I could be wrong though. I just think that N. GA is also in for a significant tornado outbreak.
Yeah, doesn't look like CLT will see what the deep south is seeing right now. Still, I guess you can't really let your guard down until all is said and done...
No you can't! I hope everyone has there weather radios turned on tonight.
Just curious what are the chances of severe storms happening in greensboro between tonight and tomorrow morning?
Good conversation today guys. Things are still pretty stable in the Carolinas at the moment...however, keep those weather radios on tonight just to be safe. Can't rule out something popping overnight.
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