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Severe Severe Threat 2/16-19

Honestly unless the SPC is sounding the alarm and going with at least a moderate risk, there's little to get excited about unless you're chasing. I don't understand how the school boards make such poor decisions over and over about closing. There should be maybe five severe related closing a year, not 15+.
 
Dodged a bullet today. Warm air a loft really helped to keep a lid on things. In addition to the positioning of the trough remaining very positively tilted and sheared out helping to keep helicity values to a minimum, it also made it tougher for the warmer air aloft to mix out.
 
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FXUS64 KBMX 162359
AFDBMX

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Birmingham AL
559 PM CST Thu Feb 16 2023

...New MESOSCALE UPDATE...

.MESOSCALE UPDATE FOR SEVERE WEATHER...
Issued at 553 PM CST THU FEB 16 2023

Convection this afternoon has struggled to organize over Central
Alabama despite favorable shear profiles and progged thermodynamics
supportive of sustained updrafts which haven`t truly materialized
up to this point due to several limiting factors. Nearby PERiLS
upper air soundings have indicated that capping aloft did
eventually erode, but early onset of showers and thunderstorms and
associated convective anvil blowoff from southern Mississippi
into southwest Alabama resulted in subdued surface heating and
weaker lapse rates than anticipated across west Central Alabama
which has limited the intensity despite favorable shear profiles.
In fact, latest observed soundings and forecast guidance confirms
that the low-level jet is beginning to intensify as we head into
the evening hours leading to even more favorable shear profiles
and hodograph curvature. While shear profiles continue to support
thunderstorm organization, it appears that waning instability as a
result of poor lapse rates from congealed thunderstorms and loss
of peak heating will further limit severe potential as the
activity gradually progresses eastward. Some cells continue to
show broad rotation, so will continue to monitor for a tornado or
two over the next several hours. Also monitoring for localized
flooding as there has been some evidence of training with heavier
downpours in thunderstorm activity. Based on surface obs, the cold
front has begun to reach the AL/MS state line. Despite lingering
post-frontal showers and a few elevated thunderstorms, the severe
threat will end abruptly once the front passes by any given
location as surface winds veer sharply.
 
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