If you’re in that area–watch out. NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center is giving a High probability rate for severe weather in for mostly central MS and AL on Saturday, which they haven’t given since the middle of last year. Conditions are ripe for tornadoes… could be nasty. The surrounding regions have higher probabilities for severe weather as well.
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/day1otlk.html
— Alan
Yow, shit.
MULTIPLE CONVECTIVE EPISODES AND STORM MODES ARE EXPECTED IN THIS
SITUATION…AGGREGATE OF WHICH SHOULD YIELD DENSE CONCENTRATION OF
SVR EVENTS BY END OF PERIOD ACROSS MDT/HIGH CATEGORICAL RISK AREAS.
THOUGH DISCRETE/CYCLIC TORNADIC SUPERCELLS ARE MOST POTENTIALLY
DANGEROUS THREAT…ESPECIALLY OVER HIGH RISK AREA…CLUSTERED AND
QUASI-LINEAR CONVECTIVE ELEMENTS WITH EMBEDDED BOW/LEWP FORMATIONS
AND SUPERCELLS ALSO APPEAR PROBABLE. STRENGTHENING DEEP-LAYER WINDS
AND RELATED FAST STORM MOTIONS PORTEND LONG TRACKS FOR SUPERCELLS
AND FOR SOME OF THEIR TORNADOES…AS WELL AS FOR SWATHS OF DAMAGING
WIND WITH ANY BOW/LEWP FEATURES. THIS SUPPORTS RATHER ROBUST
PROBABILITIES FOR ALL SEVERE MODES.
When meterorologists talk like that, they are not fucking around. Good luck to everyone in that area.
I think Alan is doing some storm chasing these days (Auntie Em it’s a twister!) so he would @!#$ing know.
I bet this is why we’ve got all these heat and moisture out here in central Texas. Humid as heck and 85F. Laws, yes.
Ugh. My family all live in central Alabama. Gonna have to keep an eye on things.
We’ll be fine. :)
For central Alabama, there is an alley they travel, which starts in Tuscaloosa and travels northeast just west of Birmingham and then continues just North of Birmingham. We often miss the worst. Although, 7 or 8 years ago, we got a record setter in my neighborhood and just down the street, within a 3 month period, the same house had two different trees crash through the center of its roof.
Hope your family stays safe jerri.
I am actually supposed to go to a wedding in Atlanta today and I am driving from Birmingham. I may have to leave at like 11am. All this is making me a tad nervous about leaving the wife and kiddies behind.
EDIT: The window for strong storms yesterday was 6 hours here in central AL and now it is only 4. The storm must have morphed a bit since last night. Mother Nature is crazy or awesome or both.
Tornadoes up everywhere in this bitch.
They bulged the zone of severe potential to cover much of Tennessee, with the storms generally trending in a sw-ne direction, so possibly Alabama may be spared a bit. Lots of tornadoes on the ground last hour in Mississippi.
— Alan
Severe predictive zone being bumped north into Kentucky now. Not over yet. The big Tornado Watch box discussion says in big red letters, “This is a particularly dangerous situation.” They don’t use that type of language much; being used to describe to separate trains of storm cells moving up through northern Mississippi/Alabama into Tennessee and Kentucky. Danger includes 3" hail and nasty long-track (ie. long-lasting) tornadoes.
Take a look at today’s storm/damage reports:
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/today.html
The red dots are tornado reports; there’s am amazing train of tornado damage stretching from one end of Mississippi to the other.
— Alan
Sitting here in my hotel in Knoxville cursing this system for cancelling all of the games tomorrow for the soccer tournament we are here for…then I remember the damage it caused elsewhere and suddenly a soccer tournament being cancelled seems pretty insignificant.
Calling Alan Dunkin, Calling Alan Dunkin, please come in Alan Dunkin so we know you’re still alive!!
:)
Haha, well, I wasn’t out chasing today (can’t really afford to chase more than once or twice a month anyway). The system itself is moving into the deep south now with tornado watches following; some warnings are still popping up in Alabama and now Georgia.
Tomorrow should be fairly good with only a few storms in the region, the system should be mostly through. A similar setup is geared to hit the central plains by next Thursday, however (though apparently the available moisture won’t be nearly as good). If Oklahoma looks good I may be out on Thursday but then again I’m heading to Austin on Friday…
— Alan
Wow…
Greg Flynn, a spokesman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, said that unlike the tornadoes typical for the area this time of year, “we don’t see tornadoes that are three-quarters of a mile wide here. This is clearly the worst tornado in decades.”
Quote from NYT article, here’s the AP version
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gToxGRg5OgeiVpllCklfwJCmigjgD9FA30Q80