HAVE A WAY TO GET TORNADO WARNINGS BEFORE YOU GO TO SLEEP… Strong to severe thunderstorms will move across south Alabama and northwest Florida overnight into Sunday morning. Multiple tornadoes have happened across parts of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi over the last few hours. You can see in the attached animation of the HRRR model that a potential broken line of supercell thunderstorms will move across our region in the very early morning hours of Sunday. Damaging winds and tornadoes will definitely be possible as these severe storms move by. Make sure you can get the tornado warnings overnight if one is required for your area. A Tornado Watch has just been issued for areas just to our north. That’s the summary, here are all the details…
TORNADO WATCH WILL BE NEEDED SOON… I expect a tornado watch to be issued around midnight for south Alabama and northwest Florida, if not sooner. I cannot stress this enough: We all have to have multiple ways to receive urgent weather warnings overnight – thing(s) that will wake us up if a tornado warning is issued for your respective location. Noctural tornadoes (even the weaker ones) are typically far more deadly than tornadoes that happen in the daytime. Be able to get the warnings, then (and this is where we lose people) DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Take action. Get to your tornado safe place. Put a helmet or cooking pot on – something to protect your head. Storms should be well to our east by late (11AM) Sunday morning.
TORNADO WATCH TILL 3AM FOR WEST & CENTRAL ALABAMA… A Tornado Watch has just been issued for Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Cullman, Decatur, Fayette, Demopolis, Linden, Sweet Water, Marion, Centreville, Hoover, Hamilton, Aliceville, Livingston, & surrounding areas valid until 3:00AM on Sunday morning. Isolated supercell thunderstorms have (so far as of 7:15PM) been under severe limits across west central Alabama. That could change anytime and these supercells may begin to produce tornadoes.
TIMING OF SEVERE WEATHER… This has not changed since this morning. The 12 hour window in which severe weather is most likely is from 1AM to 1PM Sunday, with the core risk being 4AM to Noon. Please keep in mind that is the “severe weather timing” and not RAIN timing. Rain is likely intermittently long before that timeframe. Scattered showers and storms under severe limits are possible later this evening. The severe weather risk will ramp up after 10PM.
TORNADO WARNING COVERAGE POLICY… Now is a good time for you to review our coverage policy if you’re new to the RedZone Weather community. redzoneweather.com/coverage outlines exactly which locales I provide nonstop tornado warning coverage for whenever a tornado warning polygon is in effect. If you’re in Escambia (AL), Covington, Conecuh, Butler, Monroe, Clarke, Washington, Mobile, or Baldwin counties in south Alabama, you are included in our primary coverage area. Escambia (FL), Santa Rosa, and Okaloosa counties are included in northwest Florida. While I do my best to cover other warnings, our coverage commitment is currently for those counties. Join me overnight if we have warnings! I will be in studio all night posting many updates in the RedZone Weather app when I am not on camera.
COUNTY ALERTS ONLY – OVERNIGHT… Make sure you have your specific county alert toggle turned ON in the RedZone Weather app to be able to get our tornado warning notifications. To ensure you have your county toggle turned on, visit the Alerts tab (lower right corner of app) then tap the large, yellow “Alert Settings” button. I won’t be sending Low-Level Alerts or Medium-Level Alerts after 11PM per our usual policy.
DOWNLOAD FREE REDZONE WEATHER APP… Don’t let your guard down until after our severe weather risk passes on Sunday. We all need to have away to get the urgent weather warnings, especially Sunday morning when the main risk happens. I’ll have updates as needed overnight in the RedZone Weather app. redzoneweather.com/app is the link for the free download. Once you have the app downloaded to your iOS or Android device, be sure to visit the Alerts tab (bottom right corner of app) and then read the alert descriptions so you can pick the ones you want to receive. All of our alerts are currently handcrafted by me. Unlike other sources, we won’t send you a push notification unless there is something you need to know.
MORE STORMS POSSIBLE NEXT WEEK… We’ll get a few nice days on Monday and Tuesday before another round of potentially strong to severe thunderstorms moves by on Thursday of the upcoming week. Let’s get through this overnight and Sunday morning event then we will begin to focus on Thursday.
NEXT UPDATE… Plenty more updates in the RedZone Weather app will be posted over the next few hours. You can always mash the “Refresh” button (lower left corner of app) to get the latest info. redzoneweather.com is where you can watch our live coverage and see my latest posts as well.