OUTLOOK UPGRADE: LEVEL 4 (OUT OF 5) MAJOR SEVERE WEATHER RISK ON WEDNESDAY… The Storm Prediction Center has upgraded much of Alabama into a rare Level 4 (out of 5) significant severe weather risk zone valid for Wednesday, March 17, 2021. In addition, an uncommon Level 3 risk zone is in place for most communities in south Alabama and northwest Florida. This outlook upgrade highlights the area where strong to violent tornadoes may be most likely to happen, however, please keep in mind that with the specific severe weather setup tomorrow, tornadoes will be possible anywhere across our local area. Please have a way to get urgent weather warnings on Wednesday and before you go to sleep Wednesday night!
MAIN HAZARDS WEDNESDAY INTO THURSDAY A.M. ARE TORNADOES & HIGH WIND… Strong, potentially long-track, tornadoes will become possible across parts of the Deep South, including across our local area in south Alabama and northwest Florida on Wednesday afternoon and into the evening hours in what will likely be a potentially significant severe weather situation. Damaging winds and large hail will also be concerns.
UPDATED: SEVERE WEATHER TIMING – WEDNESDAY INTO EARLY THURSDAY… We continue to observe trends across various weather models that suggest the main line of thunderstorms may not exit our region until 4-5AM on Thursday morning. There also has been some data that suggests severe, discrete storms may fire up over east Mississippi and west Alabama as early as 1PM Wednesday. Accordingly, we can now suggest that the timeframe for severe weather issues across southwest Alabama and northwest Florida will be from 1PM Wednesday to 5AM Thursday with the core threat being 3PM to 3AM.
My next video will be posted by 7:15AM this morning. I will have updates posted throughout the day in the RedZone Weather app. Have a good Tuesday!