March 16, 2021 Weather Xtreme Video - Afternoon Edition

join the american meteorological society by becoming a member of the band the ams weather band is a global community of weather enthusiasts dedicated to learning and sharing their love of science visit ams weatherband.org to learn more and join the band today it's the weather extreme video this is the afternoon edition this is for tuesday the 16th of march i'm james spann again all of the ingredients coming together for the potential for a dangerous weather situation across alabama in the deep south tomorrow afternoon tomorrow night into early early thursday morning so a lot to talk about let's see if we can answer all your questions we'll start as we usually do here with the upper air look across the country we've got one feature that's over minnesota and the dakotas but the one that's going to be the problem for us tomorrow is the one that's over arizona that digging short wave will come out across in the southern branch of the jet stream providing dynamic support for thunderstorms tomorrow and today it's fairly wet that was the radar composite at 1 42 this afternoon we've got some heavy rain falling in spots across parts of central alabama and at one point we've had severe thunderstorm warnings for parts of butler and crenshaw counties down in the southern part of the state check out the temperatures and uh oh i see a wedge cold air damming look at gadsden 52 aniana 53. it's almost cold in those cities but away from that wedge you've got temperatures near 70. for example at 72 in haleyville birmingham at 69 and deeper in the wedge only 48 in atlanta and that wedge could very well play an impact on how this thing evolves tomorrow afternoon and tomorrow night we'll talk about that in just a moment we'll check the dew points they're quite high as you might expect away from the wedge uh we've got a dew point of 67 now in tuscaloosa very ripe air mass there's the watch warning map we've got a flash flood watch for a few counties in southwest alabama southeast mississippi a winter storm watch for parts of the oklahoma and texas panhandles in southwestern kansas a winter storm warning for parts of southeast colorado severe thunderstorms a possibility through tonight from kansas down into texas there is an enhanced risk north and west of oklahoma city and for alabama a low end marginal risk that's level one out of five through tonight maybe a few storms with gusty winds small hail but the threat is low but needless to say the focus is on tomorrow this is the new day two outlook for tomorrow from the storm prediction center a risk of severe storms all the way from missouri down into florida and obviously the highlight will be in that moderate risk area this is the probabilistic outlook in terms of tornadoes and again where you see the hatched area that means the chance of a few strong violent long track tornadoes ef-345 uh in that 15 that means a 15 chance of a tornado passing within 25 miles of a given point tornadoes are small that's a pretty high number and this is the damaging wind probabilistic outlook 30 30 chance of damaging wind within 25 miles of a given point in that hatched area and again there could be some significant wind damage reports this is the way it looks for alabama the level four moderate risk includes birmingham aniston gadsden tuscaloosa florence decatur coleman clanton montgomery greenville thomasville demopolis surrounding that there's an enhanced risk for pretty much the rest of the state and again we'll talk about the timing and more about what to expect as we look at modeling here in a second and then day three this is thursday the risk moves on to the east and enhanced risk over much of the carolinas and georgia that kind of clips the southeastern part of alabama this outlook is valid after 7 a.m thursday rain for the next seven days this thing is overperformed over the last 24 hours a lot of rain for the state this is the additional rain between now and tuesday morning of next week rain amounts between two and three inches for much of the state so let's go through modeling this is the gfs the 12z run valid tomorrow at three got a strong digging negative tilt upper trough west of the state providing dynamic support with strong wind fields a surface low near fort smith arkansas and we're solidly in the warm sector now this is tomorrow morning at uh at eight o'clock and the question is could we have any severe storms with this activity uh at the moment i'd say it's unlikely the the better dynamic support is still to the west the instability values are low but still we have to watch this you know these things often can bring a surprise uh but for the moment i'd say the odds of that activity being severe not especially high let's go to 4 o'clock and any storms that get going in the afternoon they could go severe at that point we'll have plenty of dynamic support in place we'll have a strong veering of the wind with altitude and if storms can't form tomorrow afternoon they could be severe they'll be scattered not linear and this is nine o'clock tomorrow night again we'll have scattered storms here the main activity is still over in mississippi and then this is 2 a.m late tomorrow night after midnight showing the main band of storms coming in through here and not necessarily all lined up it's somewhat linear but still a lot of breaks in that line which is problematic this is the instability and again i'm going to stick with this time frame this is 2 a.m after midnight tomorrow night for that hour of the night these values are fairly high the instability value is between a thousand and 1500 joules per kilogram sheer values are high this is the zero to one kilometer storm relative helicity and the stp values are still pretty high uh the max is 7.44 this is 2 a.m so in terms of the timing you know we're kind of stretching this out it looks like it could be longer into the night into early thursday morning uh for and again this timeline is under the assumption the morning storms will not be severe the main window for severe storms areas north and west of birmingham 3 p.m until 3 a.m birmingham tuscaloosa anniston gadsden 4 p.m until 4 a.m and then from montgomery south and east 6 p.m until 6 a.m and if you're in dothan abbeville ozark you might see storms lingering through mid-morning maybe 9 10 o'clock thursday morning and again all modes of severe weather possible the possibility of large hail damaging winds tornadoes and again the chance of a few strong violent long track tornadoes a dangerous situation we don't say that to scare anybody but it's the way it is it is what it is and this happens sometimes in march and april here and again the encouragement is for you to help us spread the word to people that don't necessarily pay attention to weather let them know that this is a dangerous situation they've got to have a way of hearing warnings not a siren which is what most people think they're going to hear know where they're going think about where's your safe place do you have helmets all of the things we talk about if you could just help us spread the word that would be greatly appreciated and i will mention too that the storm prediction center has indicated that they could upgrade parts of this level four to a level five out of five high risk but that really doesn't matter that's just not that important we want people not to focus on you know risk colors and numbers just understand the entire state has a significant chance of severe storms now the one thing to watch will be that wedge again i want to go back to the stp graphic notice that sharp cutoff in northeast alabama that's the wedge and in the cold air obviously there's not going to be any severe weather can the moist air overcome that we'll see that'll be an interesting battle but that boundary could serve as a focus for strong to severe storms in the middle of the night all right thursday it's out of here thursday will be cloudy cooler rain and storms ending during the morning maybe some lingering showers over north alabama highs in the middle 60s this is friday should be a mostly dry day clouds linger highs 60 to 65 just a small chance of a shower saturday becoming partly to mostly sunny cool the high 57 to 60. this is sunday sunday morning's going to be cold we could see some frost lows will likely be in the 30s the day will be sunny the high will be in the 60s monday we're dry with upper 60s and this is a week from today tuesday the 23rd got one upper low the silver missouri another one back over the intermountain west and another strong storm look here uh the surface low is farther north and west this time it's north of kansas city but that might bring some strong storms on tuesday of next week let's go out 10 days this is friday march 26th now the trough north and west of the state a surface low near memphis and that could bring some strong storms may be severe so at the moment it looks like the two opportunities for active storms next week tuesday and then and again on friday but this could change obviously rain for birmingham off the gfs ensemble the mean between three and four inches between now and the first of april and temperatures from the national blend of models the high friday dropping to 58. it's got 39 for sunday morning that's for birmingham many spots will likely see low and mid 30s with frost and then we go back in the 70s by the middle part of next week that's it for the weather extreme video this afternoon we'll have notes on the blog the next video here by six o'clock tomorrow morning you can catch us this evening on abc 33 40 news at 4 5 6 and 10 o'clock thanks for watching have a great evening and god bless join the american meteorological society by becoming a member of the band the ams weather band is a global community of weather enthusiasts dedicated to learning and sharing their love of science visit ams weatherband.org to learn more and join the band today

Channel: ABC 33/40 Weather

Views: 14,894

Keywords: James, Spann, ABC, 3340, 33/40, Alabama, weather, ANCWX

Id: -5a79Gr1C5A

Length: 9min 23sec (563 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 16 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/KakkarotVsVegeta]

James spann is such a legendary weatherman, glad we have him in the state.

[u/Frick_The_Government]

Me in livin’ in the suburbs of Huntsville be like “Here it comes!”

[u/Delmer9713]

He starts talking about it at 1:19 in the video

He also has another video from this morning

[u/lovetheblazer]

Apparently there’s a decent chance SPC updates to High Risk (5/5) at midnight* for those of us in the current Moderate Risk area, according to Spann and the Day 2 SPC forecast. Is that still looking pretty likely according to those of you who actually know how to interpret the data? A lot of schools around here in Jefferson and Shelby Counties have already announced they are closing early tomorrow and I’m starting to get stressed as someone who is scheduled to work until 5:30 and then drive home, potentially in the thick of it.

*Don’t quote me on the midnight part. I really don’t understand the way that SPC measures time. I think they said 0600z whatever that means

[u/MrMeseeks_]

Alabama looking rough

[u/dirtyqtip]

No disclaimer about paid promotion?

[u/WillPlay4Food]

Lived in Owens Cross Roads as a kid so it always hits home on days like these. Prayers up for everyone in the high risk zone!