Severe Weather Possible Today and Tomorrow

November 29, 2022

Hi everyone, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. It has been a little while since we've had impactful weather, although last Friday there was a low severe risk that I did not write about. While it looks like the worst weather will be to our west there is a severe threat today and tomorrow as first a warm front and then a cold front passes through. You can see in the Storm Prediction Center's Day 1 Outlook below that a slight risk (yellow) of severe weather extends through the western half of Alabama with a marginal risk (darker green) covering most of the rest of the state and the western most Florida Panhandle. The slight risk area has a 5% chance of a tornado, 5% chance of hail (with the hail risk extending into the marginal region a bit), and a 15% chance of damaging winds. The marginal risk area has a 2% chance of a tornado and a 5% chance of damaging winds.

Severe timing is shown in the graphics below for each area, just note that the Huntsville graphic is almost a day old as of this writing. Expect storms to move off the Gulf into the Alabama coastal region and the extreme western part of the Florida Panhandle around noon. These storms will spread into central Alabama by mid afternoon or early evening. Around mid afternoon there may be a squall line that enters west-northwestern Alabama and sweeps through to the east-southeast leaving scattered storms in its wake through the rest of the evening. The main frontal squall line will enter northwest Alabama around midnight and clear the western Florida Panhandle around noon tomorrow. The worst weather is expected with the first two rounds but there will be some severe threat remaining with the main line that moves through later.

Huntsville Area

Birmingham Area

Mobile-Pensacola

Although there is some chance of rain today through this evening the stormy weather will likely not make it to the Emerald Coast or Panama City area until Wednesday morning. By that time the severe threat is expected to be lower, the SPC's Day 2 Outlook for Wednesday shows a marginal risk with a 2% chance of a tornado and a 5% chance of damaging winds. As mentioned above, expect the worst of the weather to exit the region by about midday.

Destin through Apalachicola

I don't think this will be a major event for anyone on this list but stay aware of changing conditions and listen for watches and warnings in your area all the same. Local TV weather stations are always a great resource. 

In the other/good news department tomorrow is the last day of hurricane season!

Have a good rest of the week.

Chris

Tropical Development Likely With Little to No Impacts Expected West of Apalachicola

November 6, 2022

The National Hurricane Center continues to monitor an area of low pressure in the Atlantic for development. Designated Invest 98L and currently located northwest of Puerto Rico, this system has a 90% chance of development over the next 5 days. More info below the bottom line you need to know is that I don't foresee significant impacts west of Apalachicola.

Getting to the details models are waffling on how far west the storm may track but I'm fairly confident it will stay east of Apalachicola. The GFS and Euro ensemble plots below provide a good picture of the current track uncertainty. Regarding intensity the GFS has been bullish on a stronger storm while the Euro has kept this system broad and weak. It remains to be seen whether this will be a tropical or subtropical system although I think a tropical storm is most likely at this point. In this case a subtropical storm would be larger (better chance of rain to the west) but less intense whereas a tropical storm would be smaller and likely a bit more intense. While a storm of category 1 strength (both for the Bahamas/Florida East Coast and the west coast of Florida) is certainly possible, right now tropical storm strength seems more likely as a maximum intensity. Now that this system is an invest we'll get more and better model solutions over the next few days that will help narrow the uncertainty. We also have plenty of time to watch, if this storm does enter the eastern Gulf it will not be until late this week.

Other than the potential impacts from this system discussed above there is basically no rain in the forecast through next weekend. On Friday and Saturday a rainless cold front will move through with some colder air behind it. While we will not see the same impacts that the Midwest will, we should get several days of below average temps. Unfortunately rain chances look to be below average. You can see this in the 6-10 day and 8-14 day outlooks below.

That's all for today. There may or may not be another update in a few days on the tropical system depending on how far west it looks to be going.

Have a great week.

Chris

Tropics Are Busy - Might See a Messy Gulf System Next Week

November 3, 2022

I wanted to get a short email out about the activity in the tropics. While the 5 Day Outlook is quite busy for November there are no big concerns for the Gulf. We may get a messy/rainy system next week but I think that'll be the worst we see.

The area I mentioned a week ago became Hurricane Lisa and has made landfall in Belize. Tomorrow Lisa will enter the Bay of Campeche as a depression and meander around for a few days before dissipating.

The other area to discuss is the yellow blob stretching from the Greater Antilles to the Bahamas. The NHC gives this area a 30% chance of subtropical or tropical development over 5 days. It does look like there's a chance this system will end up in the eastern Gulf mid to late next week but right now overall conditions do not look to be supportive of significant development.

Other than that I don't expect any significant weather for a while. A front will approach the area this weekend but it doesn't look like we'll see much from it. Expect above normal temps with maybe another cool period coming around the 15th or 16th.

Have a good weekend.

Chris