May 12, 2024
I hope you all have been having a good Mother's Day weekend. I also hope you got to see the aurora Friday night, pretty cool! The weather is a little crummier today than I thought it would be when I looked several days ago, oh well...On to tomorrow and Tuesday. I was really hoping we were done with this severe weather business, especially with hurricane season coming up soon, but it is not so.
Looking at tomorrow, the Storm prediction Center is forecasting a Slight chance of severe weather for Alabama from south of Birmingham to the coast including the Florida Panhandle east to Panama City. A Marginal risk area extends into northern Alabama and covers nearly the rest of the state. In the Slight risk area there is a 5% chance of a tornado (2% north of Montgomery), a 15% chance of damaging winds, including an area in southern Alabama and the western Florida Panhandle that may experience significantly strong winds (greater than 75 mph) as indicated by the black hatching, and a 5% chance of hail. In the Marginal risk area there is a 5% chance of both damaging winds and hail. Timing is a bit complex and unfortunately there aren't any updated timing graphics out yet. Severe storms will be possible in coastal AL and the western FL Panhandle starting tomorrow morning, with the risk for severe weather for inland areas coming later in the afternoon and evening. Depending on storm development to our west, we may see an MCS/bow echo move through in the evening and perhaps again early Tuesday morning. If confidence in this increases we may see a portion of our area upgraded to an Enhanced risk.
There is also a Marginal risk of severe weather on Tuesday for pretty much all of Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. No word on specific threats yet, but I think it'll be mostly a damaging wind risk with an isolated tornado possible. There is some uncertainty on how the forecast for Tuesday will evolve so it is possible that we may see the severe weather forecast upgraded as we get closer.
Flooding will also be a concern. For the next three days some areas around Mobile and western FL Panhandle may see 5" of rain or more, with more coming later this week (see third graphic below).
Day 2 Outlook (7 a.m. Monday - 7 a.m. Tuesday)
Day 3 Outlook ( 7 a.m. Tuesday - 7 a.m. Wednesday)
Mobile - Pensacola Area Flood Threat
Regarding last week, below are the storm reports from the 8th and 9th. You can see we had quite a busy few days of severe weather! I think the forecast was pretty good overall, although it evolved quite a bit over several days. There were some areas that got severe weather at a time of day that wasn't expected, particularly the storms in northern AL during the early evening on the 8th. The particular event we had along the coast is called a bow and arrow MCS, something I had not heard of before until just a few days ago. The "bow" was the fast moving system that came through early and the arrow was the narrow line of west-east oriented storms that we had later. On radar it kind of looks like a bow and arrow. If you want to read a paper about it I can hook you up.
Just so you know, the severe weather reports are reported for the day that the outlook applied. So the 8th is showing reports from 7 a.m. that morning until 7 a.m. the next day (the 9th) and the map for the 9th is showing reports from 7 a.m. on the 9th until 7 a.m. on the 10th. It can be confusing if you're pretty confident there was bad weather in your area but you don't see it on the map for the day you think it happened, especially if it was early in the morning.
8th
9th
It looks like this first weather system will clear out before Wednesday morning. The break in the weather will be short however, with the next system moving in on Thursday and unfortunately lingering through the weekend. If you've been wanting rain (I'm in that camp) you're going to get your wish if you're somewhere south of northern AL. Below is what rainfall totals for the next 7 days could look like.
That's it for today. I think we will see some changes to the severe weather forecast for tomorrow and Tuesday and I'll let you know if any of those changes are significant.
Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.
Chris
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