Twin States Weather Blog

Evening Thoughts

* All evidence still points towards a significant threat of severe weather tomorrow afternoon and tomorrow night...Here's my thinking:

TOMORROW: Showers and supercellular thunderstorms will develop early tomorrow afternoon across eastern Arkansas, northern Mississippi, and western Tennessee. These will likely be severe. As we go through the afternoon, more supercells will fire across central Mississippi, and these will begin moving quickly in our direction. These will likely be severe, with large hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes all possible.

TOMORROW NIGHT: Supercells will continue through much of the evening hours, with the continuing threat of severe weather. After the supercells move east out of our area, a trailing squall line will sweep through. Large hail will be the main threat with this line, but tornadoes would still be a possibility within this line.

DETAILS: Tornadoes are a big concern across northern parts of our area. The farther north you go, the more supportive the shear profile is of tornadoes. Large hail is also going to be a huge concern - the air aloft is very cold, and freezing heights are at a very favorable location in the atmosphere. Damaging winds are a secondary threat.

QUESTIONS: The main question involves storm mode - will we see supercells, or just a squall line? With discrete supercells, the tornado threat would be greatly enhanced. At this point, I lean towards supercells forming ahead of the main squall line.

Another question will be the placement and evolution of mesoscale boundaries. Things like outflow boundaries, differential heating boundaries, etc. These won't make themselves apparent until tomorrow.

WHAT TO DO: First, don't panic or be scared. Just make sure you have a way to get warnings, and a safe place to go in the event of a warning. If you take care of both of those, you will almost assuredly be fine. Tomorrow will be a good day to stay close to a good source of weather information.

NEXT UPDATE: I will post a quick update tonight just after midnight, after I've had a chance to fully evaluate the 0z (evening) model guidance.

posted by WTOK Weather Staff @ 8:50 PM