STORM2K

A dangerous and deadly severe weather outbreak looks likely tomorrow and tomorrow night from east Texas eastward through Louisiana and Mississippi. Looking at the atmosphere aloft, a 100 knot mid level jet will be present in the above mentioned areas later Tuesday. A 140 knot upper level jet and a 60-70 knot low level jet will be in place tomorrow afternoon and night. The end result could be deadly if you're not taking this one seriously.

Looking at the latest afternoon information depicts a widespread and potentially deadly tornado outbreak developing later Tuesday afternoon and night from Houston, Lake Charles and Beaumont area eastward through the Jackson, Mississippi area. At the surface a cold front will trail a developing cyclogenesis over eastern and southeastern Texas. At the same time, a warm front is expected to set up over northern Louisiana and into Mississippi and Alabama. Shearing profiles look ideal for destructive tornadoes and damaging hail in the area near the warm front from Jackson, Mississippi westward into northeastern Louisiana later in the day Tuesday and into Tuesday night.

Meanwhile along the cold front a squall line is expected to set up with supercells possibly developing ahead of the line. This event should get underway in southeastern Texas by midday into the afternoon. This event is expected to shift eastward into Louisiana Tuesday evening and Misssissippi by early Wednesday morning. Isolated tornadoes, hail, heavy rain, and extremely high wind gusts are likely with this squall line. Wind gusts over hurricane force are likely with this line of storms.

I want to repeat what the threats are for tomorrow afternoon through tomorrow night. Along the squall line, expect isolated tornadoes, heavy rain, hail, and wind gusts possibly greater than 75 mph. These winds could cause downed trees and powerlines and possibly some damage to property. The main threat from supercells Tuesday afternoon and night is very large hail and possibly destructive tornadoes. This is a huge concern from Houston and Galveston eastward into especially the Jackson, MS area where the highest shear profiles will be found.

Folks in the above mentioned areas need to prepare and have a severe weather plan in place just in case violent weather threatens. This has the potential to be one of the worse outbreaks of the year and it should be taken very seriously. I hope you heard that because I'm serious.

Jim

Excellent post, but a frightening one.

This seems to be the consenses from teh SPC and the WFO's across the south.
This sstems primary threat will be tornados, thats the probelms. Even being the timing at night makes it even more dangerous!
There is a system in the models for next week that may even be a larger storm system. We will be monitoring this one for sure.

That's what I'm worried about Bob. Systems like this that strike at night could be even worse than during the day. For one you can't see anything, it's dark anyway. So the potential of this becoming a deadly severe weather outbreak looms for the south and from where I'm sitting it's not looking pretty.

If folks have an intention of placing a weather radio on alert, do it as most of this activity will likely occur at night. Also the weather channel has a service called notify. Sign up for free using

http://www.weather.com/services/notify. ... from=onair
It could save your life tomorrow night for you folks reading this post down south from east Texas through Mississippi.

Jim

Yes, excellent post. This will be one hell of a storm with near-blizzard conditions to the NW of the surface low (OK, KS, MO, IL, MI) and a major severe wx outbreak both tomorrow and Wednesday. As I mentioned in the winter forum, areas as far north as southern IN and northern KY will be under the gun for severe wx on Wednesday. It looks like a dry slot will develop ahead of the surface low (at least according to the Eta), and that means the clearing will add a necessary ingredient thought to be missing this far north until now. The Eta builds CAPES up to near 2000 in a narrow corridor ahead of the surface low. I'm getting worried that supercells will develop (if skies clear out some) on Wednesday in southern IL, KY and IN - the fact that a deepening surface low will be tracking across the region is very concerning, particularly with the monster vort max and it's associated wind fields (and the upper jet) over the entire region. The S to SE winds ahead of the surface low and along the strong warm front will increase the potential for low-level rotation. Again, at this point I don't see this as only being a problem for the deep south.

This sytme at this time is small compared to next weeks event if it pans out as the models are predicting.
But still, we need to take notice of this system first, and be prepared, and the NOAA Weather Radio is your first defense against Severe Weather. Unless your planning on staying up ALL night to monitor ths storms, and be ready to take action. I did this in March 1993, glad I did, but this won't compare to that storm!

I won't mind the mild weather in the warm sector of this storm one bit, but I hope there won't be any severe wx in the Mid Atlantic. This severe outbreak is beginning to frighten me. There have already been some serious tornadoes this year. I hope that there are no more, at least not in populated regions.

Tornadoes at night are very frightening, because it is difficult to see the tornado in the darkness, and because the tornado in question could be rain-wrapped. This could be very serious to say the least.

-Jeb

Yea Jeb very true. Also the jet stream tends to be even stronger at night. So what folks may assume will not happen actually turns out to be worse than say during the daylight hours. That's what I'm worried about especially for folks in Mississippi where I think the worse of this outbreak may end up being. Will keep our fingers cross, yet prepare for the worse in the south.

Jim

I'll be right in the line of fire tomorrow night and I'm becoming quite concerned. I'm not too worried about tornadoes because frankly strong tornadoes are rare this far south, but I know they can occur . The thought of a rain-wrapped tornado at night is very frightening. This squall line sounds like a doozy as well, I might even take in the lawn furniture tomorrow.

If anything happens, I just got a new digital camera, so I'll be ready .

PTrackerLA wrote:I'll be right in the line of fire tomorrow night and I'm becoming quite concerned. I'm not too worried about tornadoes because frankly strong tornadoes are rare this far south, but I know they can occur . The thought of a rain-wrapped tornado at night is very frightening. This squall line sounds like a doozy as well, I might even take in the lawn furniture tomorrow.

If anything happens, I just got a new digital camera, so I'll be ready .

You're definitely hard-core!!! I'd be so darn scared that I'd be deep down in the storm cellar hiding under a table with a mattress and blankets on me and praying hard!!!


-Jeb

Nashville NWS forecast discussion in Nashville
presents the "potential" for a severe weather
outbreak, here, but, they state that they are
"keeping an eye" on the computer modules. It
seems to be a "toss-up" whether the severe
weather makes it this far north. Either way, you
can bet that my weather radio is set on "Alert"
mode!

Nashville NWS forecast discussion in Nashville
presents the "potential" for a severe weather
outbreak, here, but, they state that they are
"keeping an eye" on the computer modules. It
seems to be a "toss-up" whether the severe
weather makes it this far north. Either way, you
can bet that my weather radio is set on "Alert"
mode!

The NWS here in Memphis is treating it the same way, although their afternoon AFD expressed pretty high confidence in a severe weather event tomorrow. The question here is whether enough instability and shear will be present for tornadic supercells. Right now it looks marginal, but needs close watching. My radio is on Alert as well and ready for whatever happens tomorrow.

The latest (18z) ETA/ GFS model guidance paints a very ominous picture for Georgia on Wednesday....with progged dewpoints of 63-66°, and a perfect setup of the 850 mb and 200 mb jet stream to spawn strong to violent tornadoes across the Peach state...as well as adjacent states.

Peachtree City (WSFO) is downplaying the severe storm potential, but veteran Atlanta chief meteorologist Ken Cook is very concerned....as am I

Stay safe, everyone!

Here in KC, we might get a litrle snow. The heaviest is forecast to the south.

Kristi

My husband and I will be traveling Tuesday night to Biloxi, Miss. from Tallahassee, Fla. Will we be in the path of this system?

Jeb wrote:

PTrackerLA wrote:I'll be right in the line of fire tomorrow night and I'm becoming quite concerned. I'm not too worried about tornadoes because frankly strong tornadoes are rare this far south, but I know they can occur . The thought of a rain-wrapped tornado at night is very frightening. This squall line sounds like a doozy as well, I might even take in the lawn furniture tomorrow.

If anything happens, I just got a new digital camera, so I'll be ready .

You're definitely hard-core!!! I'd be so darn scared that I'd be deep down in the storm cellar hiding under a table with a mattress and blankets on me and praying hard!!!


-Jeb

Storm cellar? What is that? Anyway I have a good interior room away from windows and if it really gets bad we have a small closet underneath the stairs. I've been looking at some of the latest models and reading forecast discussions and it's not looking good at all.

It is looking a bit more like a Winter Event For me than a Severe Weather Event. The Local WFO is adding just a general thundershower risk for late tomorrow into Wednesday before the rain quickly changes to snow on the backside. At this point, the accumulations will be down to about 1 inch or less. The wind will probably be the biggest threat up here and across most of the Eastern half of the U.S. Most likely will be Wind Advisories and local High Wind Warnings. If enough snow can get in the mix, would not be surprised to see a few counties in Missouri and Southern Illinois put under Blizzard Warnings.

The severe aspect is going to also be conditional on:

#1 Formation of Dry Line in West Texas
#2 Position of Warm Front Relative to the Gulf Coast and The Storm System.

Everything could bust on the severe one way or the other. But still keep a watch out. Will definately see an increase in Flash Flood Warnings with all of the convectively enchanced rain north of the warm front.

Temps are too warm at the surface in the South For an Ice Event this time. Next week's storm, that could be a different story.

I'm here in the North Side of Houston waiting for the show to begin. I've got my digital camera handy and I will hit the door when the weather moves in.

Johnny wrote:I'm here in the North Side of Houston waiting for the show to begin. I've got my digital camera handy and I will hit the door when the weather moves in.

My camera is at the ready in SW Houston too. It is starting to heat up to the East, Southeast, West, and Northwest of us already. Not sure I want to see what the afternoon brings but the camera is at the ready!

Was you able to get any photos of the severe weather. The conditional aspects that I spoke of earlier did in fact come true. What an outbreak!!