Twin States Weather Blog

SPC Day 1 Outlook

* The new Day 1 Outlook is out, and it continues a "Slight Risk" for severe thunderstorms for our area. Here's the outlook and discussion:

SPC Day 1 Outlook

* My thinking has not changed too much. I believe we'll see supercells develop late tomorrow afternoon across eastern Arkansas, northwestern Mississippi and western Tennessee. These will be the "storms of the day" - rotating supercells that possibly produce tornadoes. As discussed earlier, the prime axis for this activity will be from El Dorado, Arkansas to Tupelo, Mississippi.

Further south, storms will have a tough time initiating due to a strong "cap", or layer of warm air aloft that keeps thunderstorms from developing. But, by late afternoon/evening, I would imagine we'll see some storms begin to fire across northeastern Louisiana and west central Mississippi. These will begin moving in our direction. As they move east, the instability will begin to decrease as we lose our daytime heating. This will cause the thunderstorms to likely form into a line. While this will reduce the tornado threat, the damaging thunderstorm wind threat will still be rather large.

Where and when this line forms will be crucial. If the line forms early, we'll see some damaging winds and perhaps some large hail, but the tornado threat will be low. If these storms stay separate from the other storms longer, our tornado threat will be higher. Right now, I think they will form into the line somewhere along the I-55 corridor.

As far as timing, I think the line will reach us sometime between midnight Friday and 7:00 Saturday morning. The main threat will be damaging winds and large hail, but there could be a few isolated tornadoes. The best chance of this will come along and north of a line from Forest to Philadelphia to Macon.

* Bottom line: Tonight will be an active weather night across parts of Mississippi, including potentially here at home. I encourage you to make sure you have a way of getting severe weather warnings (NOAA Weather Radio) AND a plan of action if your county goes under a warning. Taking these steps BEFORE the weather gets bad could save your life!

posted by WTOK Weather Staff @ 1:17 AM