Update on Saturday Severe Weather

January 26, 2024

We have some more details for the severe weather threat tomorrow but not too much has changed from a few days ago. You can see that the core of the risk area has expanded southwest towards the coast but thankfully the risk is relatively low. There is a Slight risk area running from Mobile to Destin west to east and then north up through the middle of Alabama just about to Huntsville. Within the Slight risk area there is a 5% chance of a tornado and a 15% chance of damaging winds for the southern portion of the risk area, 5% elsewhere. A Marginal risk area extends all around the Slight risk area covering most of the state of AL, the rest of the western Florida Panhandle, and the southern portion of central and eastern Tennessee. There is an area in central and northern AL that has a low (5%) hail risk but otherwise the main threat in the Marginal risk area is damaging winds (5%) and an isolated tornado threat (2%). Timing is a little complicated. The main line of storms will come through from mid morning through the afternoon. Storms will arrive first in the Huntsville and Birmingham areas in the morning. The squall line will trail off to the southwest and will impact the Montgomery and Mobile areas later in the morning and then into the afternoon for places farther east (1-4 p.m. for Destin to Panama City). It should be noted that there may be a second severe threat later in the afternoon through the evening for central Alabama north into Tennessee with the same threats expected. The Tallahassee NWS office had not produced a graphic as of this writing but the Slight risk area extends only just a bit to the east of the Mobile-Pensacola graphic with timing being a bit later as I described it above.

Day 2 Outlook (6 a.m. Saturday - 6 a.m. Sunday)

Birmingham Area

Mobile-Pensacola Area

I'm not expecting significant impacts from this event but there could be isolated damage from strong winds or a few tornadoes. Any tornadoes aren't expected to be as strong as we saw a few weeks ago. All the same stay aware of changing weather and be alert for watches or warnings in your area. After the weather clears out Sunday and the week to come look pretty nice. Expect cooler (but not cold) temps and dryer weather maybe all the way into next weekend with the exception of TN and northern AL that might catch a stray shower around mid-week.

Have a good weekend!

Chris