FORECAST:
Wednesday (High 76, Low 43): Sunny. Cold in the morning, warm in the afternoon.
Thursday (High 72, Low 53): Rain showers likely off and on. Any thunderstorms that form could produce some hail and strong, gusty winds.
Friday (High 78, Low 55): Breezy with increasing clouds throughout the day. Numerous thunderstorms are possible at night and may be severe.
EXTENDED OUTLOOK:
Saturday (High 73, Low 62): Thunderstorms likely - SOME SEVERE.
Sunday (High 66, Low 52): Mostly sunny.
Monday (High 64, Low 36): Sunny.
Tuesday (High 70, Low 38): Sunny.
PRONÓSTICO:
Miércoles (Máxima 76, Mínima: 43): Soleado. Frío por la mañana, cálido por la tarde.
Jueves (Máxima 72, Mínima 53): Probabilidad de lluvias intermitentes. Las tormentas eléctricas que se formen podrían producir granizo y vientos fuertes y racheados.
Viernes (Máxima 78, Mínima 55): Ventoso con aumento de nubosidad durante el día. Es posible que se produzcan numerosas tormentas eléctricas por la noche, que podrían ser severas.
PERSPECTIVA EXTENDIDA:
Sábado (Máxima 73, Mínima 62): Probabilidad de tormentas eléctricas, ALGUNAS SEVERAS.
Domingo (Máxima 66, Mínima 52): Mayormente soleado.
Lunes (Máxima 64, Mínima 36): Soleado.
Martes (Máxima 70, Mínima 38): Soleado.
NOTES:
Review your tornado safety plan before we get to Friday night. It looks like a serious severe weather potential through Saturday.
We have a "blood moon" total lunar eclipse Thursday night into Friday morning, and the clouds might break up enough for some of us to see it.
There are still some SKYWARN classes (free storm spotter training) scheduled through the month of April, think the next is actually late this month in Rainsville, but follow the link for details.
Just to have a better note amidst all the weather drama, Dolly Parton recently dedicated a song to her husband, who passed away after they'd been married for 60 years. So if you're looking for some good news in the mix of everything, there's an example of true love, which is even tougher to make last for celebrities than for people who don't have cameras chasing them everywhere.
DISCUSSION:
And while I continue to have trouble getting the graphics from SPC over to this blog sometimes (like if you click on them to see full-size, doesn't always work right), the upper-air soundings from Birmingham and Nashville this evening reflect that. These were made at 7 PM CDT, so about an hour ago.
Tomorrow that High pressure will start to shift more into the Atlantic, and we'll see mostly sunny skies, High temperature of about 75-76 again, morning Low of about 43-44.
Then Thursday looks rainy. That cold front will be way back in Arkansas and Missouri even in the evening hours, the surface Low up around Iowa and Illinois.
Now technically the Storm Prediction Center has outlooked a marginal risk for severe thunderstorms that includes the southernmost counties of North Alabama. So I should mention it. But this is for a very low chance of some thunderstorms becoming strong enough to produce quarter-sized hail or maybe a damaging wind gust of about 60 miles per hour. Compared to this weekend's weather, this is barely anything. But I guess it's good to cover all your based in a forecast. Most places in North Alabama will probably just see rain out of this and maybe a little thunder/lightning. This severe thunderstorm risk is very low, which is why they gave it the lowest probabilities that they issue. This is valid from 7 AM Thursday to 7 AM Friday.
But basically Thursday looks like a day with periods of rain, could see some thunderstorms in the mix. I'm personally not too impressed with our chance of severe thunderstorms, but do note that the models are showing more instability than they were. So we might have some hailers. And I guess this time of year it's always better to be safe than sorry. But the main severe weather threat is going to be Friday night and Saturday. Thursday is just a rainy day for most of us. High temperature should be about 71-73 range, Low about 50-53 range.
And we're going to look at the weekend storm system in some detail, because it looks like we have a potentially significant severe weather event shaping up.
So Friday we've got that Low spinning over the Great Plains, a negative-tilt trough ahead of it.
And frankly, while the main threat for severe weather will initialize more over the Mid-South/Mississippi River Valley, we will have to watch Friday night even in the Tennessee Valley.
This is now just barely within the reach of the NAM, and it is showing thunderstorms forming here or moving in here between 9 PM and Midnight.
And this coincides with a good combination of enough unstable air and wind shear moving into the region that these thunderstorms could become severe. We could see some of these be supercells.
Forecast sounding up around Muscle Shoals, where the EHI is 1.5, shows modest instability but really strong wind shear, enough to support damaging winds or a tornado. The supercell composite is 17.8 with a Significant Tornado Parameter in the 1-3 range depending on which variant of the STP you look at. But we need to take this time period seriously, even if it doesn't turn out to be the main event. This is a significant risk for at least our Western counties. And in a setup like this, you have to remember that supercell thunderstorms sustain for a long time. If a storm like this did form up near the Shoals, it could track across half the state. Sometimes they even cross state lines and cycle up and down as to how much severe weather they produce in different places along the path.
So even Friday night is looking like no joke.
Saturday continues to look increasingly concerning for what could become a full-blown outbreak of severe weather. The GFS continues to show that surface Low in a favorable position to support really organized severe weather in our region.
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And the ECMWF has come into agreement with that basic scenario. Even though I had to go to Pivotal Weather to get a good look at it. If you want really good quality graphics for the European model, you have to pay for 'em most of the time, this event has reminded me. But thanks to the folks at Pivotal Weather for showing detailed output from this model and putting it out there in the public domain.
So confidence is increasing that this will be an organized severe weather day, and there are clues that some of our local impacts may be significant.
Before I get to carried away with the severe weather analysis, let's broad-brush the basic forecast for Friday and Saturday. Friday is mainly going to be a day of increasing clouds around here, winds picking up from the South, blowing the flies in the fishes' mouth, High temperature in the upper 70's, Low in the lower 50's. Then Saturday thunderstorms are likely, it's almost a guarantee that some will be severe, High in the lower 70's, Low around 60 or so.
While we have some risk for severe weather throughout Friday night and all day Saturday (might even last into Saturday night, especially for Northeast Alabama . . . that is a detail yet to be ironed out), the best combination of instability looks like it will be between 1-4 PM CDT Saturday. As you'd expect it to be.
A forecast sounding from roughly around Winfield shows moderate-to-high instability at 1 PM combined with really strong wind shear, including 1 km Helicity well over 400 units, which makes for a Significant Tornado Parameter reading of about 4-5. And you can see the long, curved hodograph in the top right and the note below it that says a particulary-dangerous-situation tornado is possible in this atmosphere. So at least part of our region is likely to end up under a moderate-to-high risk for tornadoes with this event. And we do have to keep in mind that in at least one or two isolated spots, we could see tornadoes that are especially damaging. It's not right to forecast that 10 days in advance when nobody really knows, but we are to the point it's time to mention that potential as a harsh reality of what we're going to be dealing with. That doesn't mean it will happen, or specifically here, just that the potential is there. These are clues, and we have to put them all together in the end and decide what's most likely, when and where.
Then unfortunately at 4 PM Saturday we see a similar look around Double Springs. So it looks like we are going to be in the hot zone for tornadoes with this event, and some of them could become particularly damaging.
This system is just barely getting within the reach of the SREF. And the data coming from it so far looks like junk to my eye. Tomorrow and Thursday, we'll be able to look at the mesoscale models and may look at the CAM's too (like the HRRR) and see what extra clues we can get. But this is starting to look like it could be a full-blown tornado outbreak. And we do have those around here from time to time, many years. Some of the analogs showing up for this event so far are the March 30, 2022 event, the January 30, 2013 event (which had minor impacts on the TN Valley compared to other surrounding areas), and most concerning as far as my memory goes, the April 8, 1998 event that produced a particularly destructive tornado in Oak Grove, Alabama that night as well as several other tornadoes in the region.
Every severe weather setup is unique, but this is looking like it could turn into one of those events people remember well, not just a routine severe weather event, but a full-blown outbreak that includes tornadoes.
So if you have an actual storm shelter or know someone who does, this is an event where I'd make sure it's cleaned out and make plans to go there ahead of time, don't fool around with it. If you live in a mobile home, you have to make plans to go somewhere else for sure. And it's one of those events, if it plays out the way it's looking, that I would not wait for storms to approach to go stay with someone else (or if you don't know anyone, go to a public shelter nearby) who has a sturdy site-built house.
And even if you do have a sturdy house you can call home, you have to do the right things in a setup like this. Get into the lowest, most central part of that structure if a tornado is coming, in a small room or hallway away from windows. (Bathrooms tend to be the strongest usually.) And cover your body, especially your head, in case of falling or flying debris. That's even true if you're in a basement. Most basements are not completely underground, and especially if you get a stronger-than-average tornado, things can fall from upstairs. So if you can get up under something sturdy, that's for the best, just to be on the safe side. If you have an old football or bike helmet, put it on, because most tornado deaths come from head and neck injuries. And a helmet could have saved that kid's life in the F-5 tornado that hit Oak Grove in 1998. And you know, that's a worst-case scenario, you hardly ever see an F-5 even in a full-blown outbreak. But there was a family where everybody survived (but at least one I remember did have serious injury) except for a boy who the doctors said probably would have lived if he had a helmet on. And even back in the 1970's or 80's if I'm remembering right, Theodore Fujita, who came up with the original F-scale and did all this research on tornadoes and severe thunderstorms, decided after seeing so much tornado damage, to always recommend to people that they wear a safety helmet when sheltering from a tornado. Even before this 1998 event and that local tragedy, this guy (who became interested in severe weather after surviving the atomic bomb being dropped in Japan) was trying to spread the word that sometimes, wearing that helmet can be a lifesaver. Most people don't have tornado shelters, even though we're in one of the most tornado-prone parts of the world. Most of us have to shelter within our means in a regular house or apartment building on the lowest floor. And if you were to take a direct hit from a tornado, extra precautions can help you avoid serious injury or in some cases save your life. This looks like pretty serious business on Saturday, maybe even Friday night, and some people might need to hear this.
On the other hand, panicking is the wrong thing to do in a setup like this. You know, I posted lately about the death of Chuck Doswell, a great research meteorologist who also used to forecast at the Storm Prediction Center (although I think it had a different name back then, maybe a couple of different names in the past, and I think he might have been there when it was in Kansas City instead of Norman, Oklahoma . . . I forget these details sometimes), and was a storm chaser back before it was considered cool and even in his old age, got some of the best tornado photography you could hope to see anywhere. He was very critical of a broadcast meteorologist's advice to his Oklahoma audience to drive South to get out of the way of a really bad tornado, if they didn't have a storm pit. If you have time to read through his rant, it's worth it, because he brings up a lot of realities about tornadoes and their survivability even in the worst-case scenarios like that. To some extent, I think these significant severe weather setups do a number on everyone's nerves. But if they do an extra number on yours, you might want to read what Chuck had to say, even though he was really angry, thinking that was the wrong advice, to try to drive out of the way instead of sheltering in place. Another meteorologist, a broadcaster (one of the really good ones) named Kevin Selle told me that he thought the odds were always in favor of sheltering in place. And I was just asking him about going to a public shelter versus sheltering in an apartment on the lowest floor, wondering if I had enough time to get to the public shelter.
If you need a better tranquilizer in the form of digital words, here is a good page on storm anxiety. And I think anybody who lived around here in 2011 has some of that. Now that event that April was so bad and so unusual, you might see one or two events like that in your whole life. They really do happen about every 40 years - 2011, 1974, 1932, 1884, and that's about as far back as we have records. That day was an absolute nightmare, and we're not looking at parameters "off the charts" like they were that day. We've had setups since then where all the parameters were maxed out, more than what we're seeing so far with this event coming up, and while they did produce tornado outbreaks, they were not as bad as that event, not really even close. But as I heard James Spann say, the event he remembers more personally was March 25, 2021. Because one of those tornadoes (rated E/F-3) actually hit his home. And that's how it really is. Even if you get a more typical tornado that's "only" rated E/F-0 or F-1 and it does a lot of damage to your home or somebody you know, you're going to remember that in a way that . . . it doesn't matter what the national map looks like for tornadoes or severe thunderstorm reports that day. That one tornado that came your way is the one you're going to remember. So no, we're not looking at something like April 2011.
But . . . I can remember so many events over the years that produced significant tornadoes. And quirky things can happen. There was one in 2009 or 2010 where Yazoo City, MS got hit by a really bad tornado, and then the storms stayed pretty well-behaved until they got into Northeast Alabama. And then all of a sudden, you had major tornado damage happening in Albertville, and I think somewhere in Dekalb County like Rainsville or Fort Payne. And that started happening right when everybody was saying they thought the forecast was a "bust" for North Alabama. Well it was for some people, and I wouldn't complain if I missed out on major tornado damage over the Western side of the area. But the people who did get hit in Northeast Alabama were glad there were some forecasts and warnings, I can guarantee you. All right, here we are: That was April 24, 2010. And sometimes that can happen. You can go for hours without anything happening, and then you have more severe weather issues to deal with. This event came to mind (even though the computers are not seeing it as an analog) because of how "messy" this setup looks for Friday/Saturday.
Or thinking to an overnight outbreak, the Super Tuesday 2008 event only produced four tornadoes in our immediate area of North Alabama into Southern Middle Tennessee, even though it did a lot more nationally. Two of the tornadoes in our area were just regular tornadoes, but two of them were unusually violent, rated E/F-4 (think the Enhanced Fujita Scale had been in place for about a year then). Some people died in that outbreak. Yet there was also a trucker who survived by abandoning his vehicle (which was thrown some distance away) as one of those monster tornadoes approached, and since he couldn't get into a house in time, just held on to the nearest tree. He only had minor injuries. Nationally that was a very significant tornado outbreak, but we only had four tornadoes around here all night. That doesn't sound like much. But when you think about how it impacts people in the path, you can understand why meteorologists often say, "All it takes is one."
And this looks like a significant potential for organized, widespread severe weather with this storm system. Some of it could be particularly damaging, and that includes a threat for tornadoes.
As much as I hate to be the bearer of bad news this time, Alabama and Southern Tennessee are in the zone for the worst impacts on Saturday, probably mainly in the afternoon hours. Really the severe weather risk stretches through all of Tennessee and covers much of the Eastern third of the country, all the way up to Ohio and as far South as Louisiana and the Florida Panhandle. But North Alabama and Southern Middle Tennessee could see the worst of this event. It's looking like we will be within the hot spot for supercell thunderstorms to form, capable of producing tornadoes as well as large hail (perhaps very large) and damaging winds.
This is not like those lower-end potentials we've had earlier this year. This is serious business, where choosing to shelter from a tornado or not could save some people's lives.
We'll be able to see more details tomorrow and Thursday, but already, I'm just going to go ahead and say, this looks like a setup for a tornado outbreak. Nobody much likes these kinds of days besides storm chasers, and storm chasing is tough to do around here unless you really know what you're doing.
On Sunday the severe weather threat shifts to the Mid-Atlantic for the most part, and they probably won't have as serious of issues as we will in the Mississippi and Tennessee Valleys. But any severe weather risk is worth respecting.
We'll be mostly sunny behind the cold front around here, High in mid-60's, Low of 50 or so.
And the rest of the forecast period looks peaceful. Monday and Tuesday look sunny, High in lower 60's, Low in upper 30's for Monday. Then the High for Tuesday should be closer to 70 degrees.
This is a dynamic time of year when the weather is almost always in flux. But the only period we're majorly concerned with is Friday night and Saturday. That's when things could get dangerous.
Even though I went into a crazy level of detail talking it out above, looking at computer analogs and other events certain details just reminded me of personally, here are the main ideas.
The threat for an isolated thunderstorm reaching severe limits on Thursday is very low, and in my personal opinion, if we do see anything, they'll probably be "hailers", with maybe a damaging wind gust in there, but more likely the kind of hail that can be measured in coin sizes, not ball sizes.
Friday night, we need to start taking things seriously. Even in the hours before Midnight going into early Saturday morning, some supercells could form in Mississippi and track in here, or even form in North (probably Northwest) Alabama. Any of those storms could produce large hail (perhaps the kind that needs to be measures in ball sizes instead of coin sizes), damaging winds, or a tornado.
And then Saturday afternoon may be the main event, when parameters look most favorable for supercell thunderstorms capable of producing tornadoes.
So this is a really wide window of time where we have to stay alert for severe weather. Have a safety plan for home, work, and/or school, and also for if you get caught out driving during part of this. Plan at least three places along your route, building you could pull over and get inside, away from glass, if a tornado were to threaten. This is one of those setups where doing the right things becomes more important than usual. And you can't afford to get caught in a car or a mobile home.
Don't rely on outdoor sirens, but have a more reliable way of getting warnings that will wake you up if need be. Wireless Emergency Alerts on your cell phone are the baseline. Or if you only have a landline (some old folks may read this blog), you could stay tuned to a radio station that will cut in for severe weather, which is better for waking you up than leaving the TV playing. But really a NOAA Weather Radio is the best thing. And you need batteries in it for backup. Because sometimes you can lose power in a long-duration event like this, even if it's just from high winds. And that weather radio will still sound the alert and wake you up if a Tornado Warning is issued for your area.
Another advantage for weather radio over cell phone technology is that it will alert you even for a Severe Thunderstorm Warning. And those can be worth paying attention to, especially with an event like this, that has the potential for major impacts for some of us. The infamous tornado that hit Huntsville in November of 1989 touched down when a Severe Thunderstorm Warning was in place. Of course they immediately upgraded it to a Tornado Warning as soon as the tornado was spotted. We do have a lot better radar technology and communications technology now, but some tornadoes can still get missed, at least when they first develop. Within the past few months, there was a tornado that hit Athens, Alabama at night when there was "only" a Severe Thunderstorm Warning in place. I believe it did carry a tag that a tornado was possible, that there was rotation in this storm. But a lot of people don't bother to read that. Or if they don't have a weather radio to wake them up at night, they might miss the warning altogether. My great-grandmother always took Severe Thunderstorm Warnings seriously, even though I don't think she even was able to finish the 8th grade, had to go to work instead. She educated herself the best she could about the weather, living out in the country. And when I was able to do college for about two years, became a real know-it-all about weather stuff, I thought she overreacted to a lot of stuff and was just a worrier. But the more I learned, the more I realized that she was right about nine out of ten times. I mentioned Chuck Doswell and his contributions to understanding severe weather. And he got genuinely sad about that one time on a podcast, saying, "You know . . . we've failed there. If people think they can ignore severe thunderstorm warnings, then we've failed to communicate to the general public, somewhere along the way." So please, if you have a weather radio, take those warning seriously for this event, or if you are keeping up with the weather.
And of course, if you get a Tornado Warning, if you are anywhere in that polygon, take shelter right away, and do the best you can for this event. Because that extra precaution or two you take might really make a difference this time. I don't know who's going to get hit, but I'm talking to you ahead of time. Don't thumb your nose at this one, can't afford to.
The reason for respecting the whole polygon is that there's always a margin of error with radar, even if it's working the way it's supposed to. And some of the best radar systems have sometimes had errors even on major severe weather days. Plus there are other factors, like even in a supercell thunderstorm that's out by itself, hogging all the fuel and wind shear, sometimes you can have a secondary circulation form in another part of that supercell and produce another tornado. You might not have much or any advance warning for that extra circulation. And the weather near a tornado tends to be really bad anyway, especially if it's coming out of a supercell, where the hail can be really large, and blowing around in severe thunderstorm winds. So you don't have to get hit directly by the part of the storm with the tornado to get some damage or for somebody to get hurt.
And I said it was the bullet points. I'm on a roll tonight. This really does look serious, and I wanted to emphasize it so that anybody who happens to read this can understand. It's not the worst we've ever seen, but this looks like a setup for a tornado outbreak. We've weathered many of those over the years and decades, but they all need to be taken seriously.
As usual with an organized severe weather event, there is a risk for flash flooding in the mix. Of course you never try to cross water that covers a roadway. But the main threat with this event is going to be severe thunderstorms capable of producing tornadoes.
Rainfall totals will average about 2.5-3 inches around here. And we do need the rain. Droughts often end up with a bang, and this looks like one more example of that.
So spread the word, keep yourself and your loved ones safe during this event. You don't have to have a perfect safety plan, like being in a FEMA shelter or underground bunker, but just keep a cool head and do the best you can.
P.S. 11:05 PM Note - I forgot to say anything about the smoke from the prescribed burns . . . the tornado threat just sorta' stole the show. That was mainly up around Albertville, Fort Payne, Scottsboro, Huntsville. They didn't have to issue any air quality alerts though, just reduced visiblity at times . . . and the air quality alert for Birmingham and such places was allowed to expire.
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