Twin States Weather Blog

Wet & Stormy Weekend:

* Good morning everyone. The new model runs early this morning looking even better for rain in our area this weekend but also tending to favor more of a severe weather threat for the Twin States Saturday and Saturday night.


* Today warm weather will continue across the area. A warm front will move across the area today helping high climb back into the middle 80s and also help more low level moisture move into the area.

* Above is the new Day 2 Outlook from the SPC that came out overnight (valid for most of Saturday). As you can see it is nearly all of Mississippi and a sliver of West Alabama in a slight risk area. Here's the my thoughts this morning. Based in the GFS runs, the low I have mentioned the past few newscasts over the Rockies will continue to move eastward today. The associated trough is moving a decent piece of energy out of the Southwestern United States into Southwest Texas where severe weather is a good bet across the Edwards Plateau and the Hill County of Texas today. That piece of energy is rotating around the trough and will eject northeast toward our area by tomorrow. I will note the models and the morning forecast discussion from the NWS in Jackson indicate this going negatively tilted, which usually favors severe weather development.

* The best instability and lift looks to be roughly along and north of Mississippi Highway 16 tomorrow... or roughly from Carthage to Philadelphia to De Kalb and points northward. The forecaster at the NWS tends to note that he feels the areas south of MS 16 should remain capped from a severe weather event. I somewhat agree as I have thought the past few days and still to a point that the best chance of severe weather will be across Northern half of the state. However I will not rule out a chance of a severe storm along the I-20/US 80 and I-59/US-11 corridor in East Mississippi and West Alabama with this system. Having said that, I think once moisture surges into the state being pulled into this piece of energy that the severe weather threat gets cut for our area and shoved more into the Mid-south region. This could also transition a soaking rain event.

* The GFS model is screaming a heavy rain event for our area and the model returns are showing large globs of precipitation across the area. I think we have a good chance for rain in our area and we could really use it. I would guess we have a setup for at least an inch or two in some spots but as the trough lifts northward the steering winds veer to more of a southwest to northeast pattern, this will enhance the heavy rain threat and could cause thunderstorms to train across the area which could lead to some minor flooding. Its hard to believe we could mention flooding with it being so dry, but if you get multiple inch rains over an area continuously the soil can only take so much.

* Here is this morning's Hazardous Weather Outlook for our area from the Jackson NWS which basically flows with what I mentioned above:

...DAYS TWO AND THREE...SATURDAY AND SUNDAY...

SCATTERED SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS WILL BE POSSIBLE SATURDAY AFTERNOON AND SATURDAY NIGHT ACROSS A PORTION OF THE AREA. THIS WILL BE POSSIBLE AS A LARGE UPPER LEVEL LOW WILL PIVOT AND LIFT NORTHEAST ACROSS THE MIDDLE OF THE COUNTY SATURDAY. AS THIS OCCURS...A DECENT DISTURBANCE WILL MOVE ACROSS THE NORTHWEST PORTION OF THE AREA. THIS FEATURE WILL BE ACCOMPANIED BY APRE-FRONTAL TROUGH WITH MOIST AND UNSTABLE AIR JUST AHEAD OF IT. THESE FEATURES WILL COMBINE TO FIRE THUNDERSTORMS ACROSS NORTHERN AND CENTRAL LOUISIANA WHICH WILL THEN SPREAD NORTHEAST ACROSS PORTIONS OF CENTRAL AND NORTHERN MISSISSIPPI.

AREAS ALONG AND NORTH OF A LINE FROM NATCHEZ TO JACKSON TO PHILADELPHIA WILL HAVE THE BEST RISK OF SEEING SEVERE STORMS. DAMAGING WINDS...LARGE HAIL AND ISOLATED TORNADOES WILL ALL BE POSSIBLE. THE MAIN TIME FRAME FOR THIS TO OCCUR WILL BE BETWEEN 2PM AND MIDNIGHT.

LOCALLY HEAVY RAINFALL WILL ALSO BECOME A CONCERN SATURDAY NIGHT. THIS WILL BE POSSIBLE AS THE UPPER LEVEL SYSTEM LIFTS OUT OF THE AREA AND CAUSES THE SURFACE BOUNDARY TO SLOW AND STALL OVER THE AREA POSSIBLY CAUSING STORMS TO MOVE REPEATEDLY OVER THE SAME AREA. DURING THE EVENING AND OVERNIGHT HOURS...AREAS ALONG AND NORTH OF I-20 MAY SEE 1-3 INCHES OF RAIN WITH SOME LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS.

EVERYONE IS URGED TO STAY A BREAST OF THE LATEST INFORMATION CONCERNING THIS POTENTIAL SEVERE WEATHER EVENT.

* Rain and occasional storms will continue on Sunday as the system will still be close enough to help activity continue across the area and plenty of moisture along with daytime heating.

* Monday and Tuesday look dry and then the next chance of rain enters the forecast my the middle of next week as a cold front drops into the area. This front will bring our Easter cool snap with highs dropping back to near normal for this time of year and actually a little cooler than the normal.

* Down the road April looks be a wet month with a zonal pattern setting up over the Southeast with rain chances being painted on the long range models (per the 12Z GFS) on April 4th, and roughly from the 9th - 14th. It also looks like a cooler pattern takes shape during April too with the indications parts of the Southeast will see some mornings with frost possible at times.

* I know I have said a lot here in this blog but honestly the models have changed quite a bit since yesterday and will probably change as we go through the day.

* More on the weekend forecast at 6:00 AM on Good Morning Meridian. Ashley McDonald is going to cover the evening newscasts tonight. Again I want to welcome Rob Hart, our new weekend meteorologist, who will be here with you this weekend. Ashley McDonald is leaving us on the weekends for a job in Montgomery. She will still he here helping me out on Friday nights until we get back fully staffed. I will be here to help Rob if the weather goes downhill Saturday. I'll have another detailed blog update later today after I get some rest and look at the new data later today.

Labels: Forecast Discussion

posted by Chris Whited @ 4:00 AM