Southeast Braces for Severe Weather

We usually think of January as a cold and snowy month, not so in the southeast where they’re in line for rounds of severe weather throughout the weekend. A potent low pressure system moving through the southern United States will touch off thunderstorms capable of producing damaging winds, large hail and even isolated tornadoes.

In order to get severe weather, you need to have several ingredients in place, the first is instability. With temperatures nearing 70ºF and dew points in the upper 50s to lower 60s, CAPE values (or the potential energy storms can tap into) are nearing and possibly exceeding 1000 units which, for January, is decently high.

There’s also no problem with our next ingredient, wind shear. General rule is that you need winds of around 40 knots for severe weather and that’s exactly what we see coming together. Winds even change direction slightly as we go up into the atmosphere, increasing the risk for tornadoes. The last ingredient we look for is a forcing mechanism and there’s no shortage of forcing with a low pressure system and a warm front in the area.

All of this has led the Storm Prediction Center to issue 2017’s first Enhanced Risk of severe weather (or a 3 on a scale from 0-5) for the Lower Mississippi Valley.

This area has already been dealing with severe weather for the past few days. An EF-2 tornado with winds approaching 120mph struck Simpson and Smith Counties in Mississippi yesterday, leaving a 19.2 mile path of damage.

More scenes like this will be possible through the weekend as the threat moves eastward over the next few days. Staying in the Mississippi Valley for Saturday and shifting towards northern Florida on Sunday.

While we will see rain throughout the weekend, we won’t be under the gun for any strong to severe thunderstorms in our area. Heavy rain will be an issue though, so stay tuned to WxOrNot for more on that in the next few days.