FIRST SEVERE WEATHER RISK OF FALL SEVERE WEATHER SEASON… There is a low-end, Level 1 (out of 5) marginal risk of a few strong to severe thunderstorms on Tuesday. The main concern in the stronger storms will be brief tornadoes and damaging wind gusts. Vast majority of us across south Alabama and northwest Florida will have beneficial rain throughout the day on Tuesday with not much else in the way of impacts. The chance of severe weather is LOW, but it is not zero. Intermittent rain and storms will be possible now through Wednesday morning with the core severe weather risk happening in the middle part of the day on Tuesday. Here are the details…
LOW-END SEVERE WEATHER RISK… It has been several weeks since we have had any type of significant severe weather episode. For those of you that may be new to RedZone Weather, we rely heavily on the standard Storm Prediction Center convective outlooks that are issued multiple times daily when there is a severe weather potential. “TORcon” and other proprietary tornado index values are used by some companies, but around here, we use the industry-standard convective outlook issued by SPC. For Tuesday, October 15, our local area is included in the low-end, Level 1 (out of 5) risk zone. This means that a few isolated stronger or marginally severe thunderstorms may happen, but the overall severe weather risk remains low.
POTENTIAL HAZARDS ON TUESDAY… Heavy rain that could lead to isolated instances of flash flooding will be the main concern on Tuesday. In addition, there is a low-end chance that some of the stronger storms may produce damaging wind gusts or a brief tornado or two. There are several factors working against the potential tornado risk on Tuesday, including (but not limited to) lack of instability once storms “work over” the atmosphere and low lapse rates. As always, if we happen to have any tornado warnings in our primary coverage area, we will provide uninterrupted live video coverage on Facebook and in the RedZone Weather app in the Live tab.
INLAND COMMUNITIES HAVE LOW-END RISK OF STRONGER STORMS… Pretty much all of us minus the immediate beach zones have the low-end, Level 1 (out of 5) severe weather risk in place for Tuesday. Areas north of Interstate 10 in Mobile, Baldwin, Escambia (FL), Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, and Walton counties are involved in the low-end risk zone. This means that ALL of Escambia (AL), Conecuh, Butler, Covington, Monroe, Clarke, Washington, and Choctaw counties are included as well. We note that parts of central and southeast Alabama are also included in the Level 1 risk zone, including Montgomery, Auburn, Selma, Demopolis, Camden, Enterprise, Dothan, Troy, Geneva, and Eufaula.
RAIN & STORM TIMING… While heavy rain could happen at any time on Tuesday, the focus for the stronger to severe storms will happen mainly between Noon and 6PM. This is because storms will have more instability to work with in that time period compared to the late evening and early morning hours.
My next full forecast video will be posted by 7:15AM on Tuesday. Before then, I’ll have plenty of updates tonight and overnight if needed in the RedZone Weather app!
APP ALERTS… Be sure to download the free RedZone Weather app (redzoneweather.com/app is the link for the free download) and set up your customized alerts. Once you have the RZW app downloaded to your iOS or Android device, visit the Alerts tab (lower right corner), then tap the large, yellow “Alert Settings” button to customize the specific alerts you would like to receive. We have a solution for everyone – folks that want a lot of information and folks that may only want the important, rare alerts. Check out details in the Alerts tab today!
Have a nice evening!