QUIET START TO OUR WEEK; MORE STRONG TO SEVERE STORMS THURSDAY… Talk about a high impact severe weather event. My goodness! We had *numerous* reports of severe weather damage yesterday and last night across our region. Trees are down this morning in numerous spots across the region with multiple likely tornado tracks. Fortunately, severe weather is long gone to our east at this point. Much better weather is on tap for this Monday across south Alabama and northwest Florida. We are looking ahead to Thursday when we could have another round of strong to severe thunderstorms, perhaps including tornadoes. I know that isn’t what we want to hear, but this is severe weather season in the Deep South and these events should be expected. Let’s look at your details.

DAMAGE ACROSS THE REGION… The Level 4 (out of 5) severe weather risk absolutely verified yesterday into last night. The severe weather episode that happened yesterday into last night (and really early this morning) was a significant event. We have TEN, yes ten, counties with possible or confirmed tornado damage! TEN COUNTIES with tornado damage. That is quite an event! Washington, Choctaw, Clarke, Wilcox, Monroe, Butler, Covington, Mobile, Baldwin, and Santa Rosa counties have suspected tornado damage. NWS Mobile will do surveys today and tomorrow to see if this damage was caused by tornadoes or damaging straight line winds. In addition, and perhaps a bit more shockingly, ALL LOCAL COUNTIES had confirmed “straight line wind” damage. That is quite a feat for a storm system! In addition, a long track, strong tornado happened across southeast Mississippi. This was a high-end severe weather risk that caused much damage across our region.

MAINLY SUNNY TODAY & TUESDAY… The severe weather from last night is long gone to our east. Skies will become mostly sunny later today with high temperatures in the low-80s. The same story is expected on Tuesday with mostly sunny skies with high temps in the low-80s yet again.

SEVERE WEATHER RISK TO OUR WEST ON WEDNESDAY… The Storm Prediction Center has added a Level 2 (out of 5) severe weather risk for much of Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, southern Oklahoma and east Texas. This risk also extends into Choctaw, Sumter, Greene, and Pickens counties in west Alabama.

CLOUDS INCREASE LOCALLY ON WEDNESDAY… As we watch the developing weather system to our west, clouds will thicken and increase in coverage across our region on Wednesday. High temperatures again will be in the mid-80s.

SEVERE WEATHER RISK ON THURSDAY… The Storm Prediction Center has outlined much of south Alabama and northwest Florida in their Level 2 (out of 5) severe weather risk valid for Thursday. Unfortunately, this will be yet another event when strong to severe thunderstorms capable of producing tornadoes, damaging winds, hail, and flash flooding will become possible. The magnitude of this event is still a bit uncertain, but odds are we won’t be dealing with a high severe weather risk level like we had during the last two Sunday events. Definitely something to watch over the next few days. As always, if we have tornado warnings, be sure to tune into our coverage. We’ll be with you ahead of the event and during the event to help try to keep you and your family safe!

MORE STORMS POSSIBLE THIS WEEKEND… While it is a bit too early to speculate about specifics, another round of showers and thunderstorms will be possible on Saturday into Sunday. There have been early indications that we could have yet another round of strong storms on Sunday, but I caution this is a week out and the model guidance can and probably will change. We remain in the heart of primary severe weather season though. This pattern of recurring severe weather will likely break in early May.

APP ISSUES YESTERDAY… We had many, many thousands of users across the Deep South attempting to access information in the RedZone Weather app. This caused slowness in the app at times with weird “database connection errors” and things like that. I can assure you we will be working diligently in the days ahead to make sure this does not happen again. While it is challenging to develop solutions for “high water marks” that often can exceed even the best “stress tests” we regularly put our systems through, I feel sure we will be able to rise to the occasion and report back to you soon that we have higher capacity in place. Thank you so much for your patience at times and thank you greatly for choosing OUR weather coverage!

APP… If you haven’t already downloaded the RedZone Weather app, now is a great time to do that. redzoneweather.com/app is the link to the free download. Once you have the RZW app installed on your iOS or Android device, be sure to visit the Alerts tab to turn on the specific notifications you’d like to receive. All notifications are handcrafted by me. No automation and we promise not to bug you!

See all the details in your Monday #rzw forecast video that will be posted by 9AM. I recorded this video right after our severe weather event earlier this morning, so please pardon me being in the same clothes as last night! I am getting some rest this morning and look forward to bringing you more coverage this week.