The latest Day 4 Severe Weather Outlook from the Storm Prediction Center has a good portion of North and Central Alabama in a 30% chance of severe thunderstorms occurring within 25 miles of a point, potentially equalling an Enhanced Risk. The rest of the area is in a 15% chance of severe thunderstorms which would translate to the standard Slight Risk. This graphic is valid from 6:00 am Wednesday morning to 6:00 am Thursday morning.
It is too early at this point to determine the full potential of this severe threat, but a stalled front will begin to move northward as a warm front as a surface low will be moving northeast from the northwestern parts of the Gulf of Mexico towards Tennessee and Kentucky through the day.
A line of stronger to severe storms looks to form out to our west and move through North and Central Alabama during the late-night hours on Wednesday night and continuing through the pre-dawn hours on Thursday morning. We could have supercells develop out ahead of the line and may move through the area during Wednesday afternoon and evening.
We’ll have unstable air over the area, and combining that with strong shear, there is the potential for damaging winds and a few tornadoes.
We’ll really need to be prepared on this severe event as the ground will be soaked to the core with the excessive rainfall that will have already occurred before the event, the root systems on all trees may be very weak. We’ll probably need to treat Severe Thunderstorm Warnings the same as Tornado Warnings due to the fact that it won’t take that much to blow down plenty of trees.
We’ll also continue to have the threat of flash flooding as this particular system will also dump a good bit of rain over the area.
Now is the time to get prepared, especially since today will be a nice and dry day. Once Monday morning gets here, we’ll start to have rain and thunderstorms moving through the area that will dump an excessive amount of rain, with 1/4 inch possible in the southeastern parts of the area to as high as nearly 4 inches in the west and northwestern parts of the area just through 12:00 am Tuesday.
An Areal Flood Watch has been issued for all counties in North Alabama and for the northern and western counties in Central Alabama starting at 6:00 am on Monday morning and is set to expire at 6:00 am Tuesday morning at this point.
I’ll continue to have updates throughout the day and through the first part of the week leading up to this severe threat. Enjoy your Sunday while it is dry because this will be the last bit of sunshine you will see until Friday.
Central Alabama Weather 