Nearly all of the southern half of Central Alabama remains in a LEVEL 4 MODERATE RISK through the rest of the day and into the early morning hours on Monday. This includes locations along and south of a line from Union (Greene Co.) to Jemison (Chilton Co.) to Alexander City (Tallapoosa Co.). Strong tornadoes, damaging winds up to and exceeding 70 MPH, and large hail up to golf ball size will be possible with any severe storms over the Moderate Risk area.
A LEVEL 3 ENHANCED RISK continues for locations north of that to as far north as Carrollton (Pickens Co.) to Saginaw (Shelby Co.) to Malone (Randolph Co.). Tornadoes, damaging winds up to and exceeding 70 MPH, and large hail up to golf ball size will be possible with any severe storms over the Enhanced Risk area.
A LEVEL 2 SLIGHT RISK continues north of that to as far north as just above Vernon (Lamar Co.) to Warrior (Jefferson Co.) to Jacksonville (Calhoun Co.). Damaging winds up to 60 MPH and large hail up to quarter size will be possible with any severe storms over the Slight Risk area. The tornado threat is very, very small, but not at zero.
A LEVEL 1 MARGINAL RISK continues north of that to as far north as Haleyville (Winston Co.) to Baileyton (Cullman Co.) to Little River (Cherokee Co.). Isolated damaging winds up to 60 MPH and isolated large hail up to quarter size is possible, but not likely over the Marginal Risk area.
Timing for the potential for severe storms across the risk locations will be from 3:00 pm to 9:00 pm for the western parts, 6:00 pm to 12:00 am for west-central to the east-central parts, and 8:00 pm to 2:00 am for the eastern parts.
The warm front is currently extending across the southern parts of the area stretching from Sweet Water in Marengo County eastward over to roughly around Troy in Pike County. So far, the movement to the north of the warm front has been shunted somewhat due to boundaries that were formed by the heavy rains that have been falling during the morning hours. The front will eventually move northward and probably wind up as far north as just south of Tuscaloosa to near Sylacauga to around Auburn. The good news is that a cold pool to our east has allowed some stabilization to occur.
Destabilization will be ongoing throughout the main heating of the day and into the evening hours south of where the warm front ends up. The latest model runs continue to favor the development of severe storms across the southern half of the area this afternoon and evening with the highest threat occurring over the Moderate Risk locations.
Heavy rainfall with flash flooding potential will be the main concern along and north of the warm front as the morning storms have already dropped 2-4 inches. With the ground already well-saturated from this morning, any additional heavy rainfall will lead to localized flash flooding issues.
Today is a day that we need to realize that we have to take a severe thunderstorm warning as seriously as a tornado warning. Winds possibly up to 80 MPH caused plenty of damage in some of our south-central and southeastern locations with multiple structures damaged due to wind damage or trees falling on them. Stay prepared and be weather aware as we still have a long way to go before the threat is over.
Central Alabama Weather 