ISOLATED SEVERE STORMS POSSIBLE FRIDAY A.M.
RZW Exec partners, I hope each of you had a great Christmas! We have a potential severe weather event coming together for the morning hours of Friday across parts of south Alabama and northwest Florida. While the main concern for most of us across the region will be heavy rain that could potentially lead to flash flooding, there also is a risk late Thursday into Friday morning for a few tornadoes and damaging wind gusts, especially over our west Alabama counties.
GREATEST RISK: WEST ALABAMA
Above is the latest convective outlook, issued by the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) in Norman, Oklahoma. SPC has parts of west Alabama included in their Level 2 (out of 5) standard slight risk zone to potentially see a few strong to severe thunderstorms early Friday morning. Much of the remainder of our local area is included in the Level 1 marginal risk zone, depicted in the darker shade of green in the graphic above. These are the areas where the severe weather risk is LOW, but it’s not zero.
This means that the risk of a few tornadoes and damaging wind gusts in the stronger storms will happen across Mobile, Washington, and Choctaw counties in west Alabama. Communities included in the Level 2 risk zone are areas in/near Chatom, McIntosh, Fruitdale, Vinegar Bend, Frankville, Millry, Citronelle, Wilmer, Toxey, Silas, and Gilbertown.
BIG RAIN EVENT
All of us across south Alabama and northwest Florida will likely pick up 2 to 3 inches of rainfall in total over the next 5 days. We note that rainfall projections have edged downward slightly over the last 24 hours, as we did have much of the region included in the 3-4″ rainfall zone. There could be some training involved with showers and storms over the next few days, meaning localized flash flooding issues will be possible.
RAIN/STORM TIMING
Scattered rain showers will likely begin across the region as early as late this (Wednesday) evening. Scattered to numerous showers are expected across the region on Thursday. The severe weather risk will begin on Thursday evening and last until the main line of thunderstorms passes through on Friday morning. The line of storms should progressively weaken as it crosses our area. There’s a good chance we’ll be able to give a severe weather “all clear” during the late morning hours of Friday. Rain will continue long after the severe weather risk ends, however. The core risk of strong to severe thunderstorms will be from 2AM Friday to 8AM Friday.
Below is a projected radar view from the 3km North American Model (NAM) valid at 8AM CST on Friday morning. This model simulation shows the main line of thunderstorms entering west Alabama with scattered showers and storms out ahead of the main line. IF (and that’s a big if, at this point) any of the storms out ahead of the main line become discrete/isolated, there could be a tornado or two associated with those storms as well.
NEXT RZW EXEC UPDATE
My next RZW Exec update will be posted here in Tactical Ops by 2PM on Thursday, December 27. We have already initiated our public messaging about this severe weather event and will continue to post updates in the public-facing sections of the RedZone Weather app and across our social platforms as well. Let me know if you have any questions!