TORNADO RISK VERY LOW FOR P.M. THURSDAY… RZW Exec members, good evening! There is strong agreement that there will be little to no issues, in terms of a severe weather threat, for Thursday into Thursday night. Out of a complete abundance of caution and due to the respect I have for the North American Model (NAM), we will continue to publicly suggest a VERY LOW (not zero) tornado risk for the immediate beach areas for Thursday evening into the overnight hours. I would suggest at this point there is an 80-90% chance that no tornado warnings will be needed with this event. That means, however, that there is a very low 10-20% chance that we could have a brief, spin-up tornado. This is completely conditional, based on the placement of the northward-advancing warm front from the Gulf. Odds suggest that the front won’t cross the coast to the north, which is a good thing! I’ll be up late on Thursday monitoring radar trends closely, just in case we happen to have a tornado warning near the coast. It should be heavily emphasized that the severe weather risk for inland areas (basically all areas north of I-10) is at or near zero.
Confidence remains high that this will be a heavy rain event with some nuisance-type flash flooding issues. This won’t be a major flash flood event, but I can’t rule out isolated instances of flash flooding both near the coast and over inland areas.
SEVERITY… Intermittent times of heavy rain will almost certainly happen on Thursday across south Alabama and northwest Florida. This means that isolated flash flooding will be possible in spots. The tornado risk remains NEAR ZERO for inland counties. The tornado risk near the immediate coastline remains VERY LOW, but not zero.
LOCATIONS AFFECTED… The low-end tornado risk, if it materializes, will set up in the southern part of coastal counties (Mobile, Baldwin, Escambia [FL], Santa Rosa, and Okaloosa). The low-end risk for flash flooding will be areawide, including inland areas.
TIMELINE OF IMPACTS… Rain and general thunderstorms will be possible starting early on Thursday. If an isolated tornadoes happen near the coast, the risk is greatest between 3PM and 11PM on Thursday. Rain and storms will move out late Thursday night into early Friday. Clearing skies are expected starting midday on Friday.
NEXT RZW EXEC UPDATE… This is be the final update for this event in RZW Exec. Signficant issues are NOT expected due to this passing area of low pressure. We will continue our public messaging about this potential, low-end severe weather risk for coastal areas on Twitter and in public-facing sections of the RZWeather app today into tomorrow. As always, let me know if you have any questions or concerns.