We are going to deploy for the first minor potential severe weather event tomorrow afternoon to West Alabama.  There are still a few questions in terms of what exactly will occur, but there are indications that some severe thunderstorm activity will certainly get underway tomorrow afternoon and evening.  Let’s break it down…

An upper level system to the west will begin to kick out tomorrow afternoon and produce some potential major severe weather across portions of the Ark-La-Tex tomorrow evening as the main shortwave moves to our north.  A surface low pressure system will move northeast through the mid south and will allow for a warm frontal boundary to move northward after the morning rains pass to the east.  This will be the area that we will target across portions of West Central Alabama tomorrow afternoon.

The mesoscale model indicates that enough instability could develop to allow for isolated storm to fire along the I-20 corridor after 3PM tomorrow.  With the surface warm front in place and an increasing southwesterly low level jet over top….there is some potential for a few rotating thunderstorms to be involved.  Cold temperatures aloft will definitely bring a hail risk…..as noted with today’s storms over Meridian where 1.75″ hail was reported.

Along and south of the boundary….surface temperatures are expected to rise into the 70′s and create an increasingly unstable environment.  Dewpoints are only progged to be in the upper 50′s….so if moisture in the lower levels is greater than advertised and surface heating is more prominent as well we could deal with a more substantial threat.  We don’t have overly impressive parameters, but we have a pretty good mix of potential instability and shear across the West.  We will need to watch for these storm to form an mesoscale complex tomorrow night producing damaging winds and hail. 

We will continue to keep you updated and will be streaming LIVE on the Alabama Storm Trackers chase and chat page on the blog.  Stay tuned to the latest twitter, facebook, and blog postings for updated information on this weather situation.

The National Weather Service in Birmingham has issued a Winter Weather Advisory for portions of East Central Alabama…..including:  Randolph, Clay, Talladega, Shelby, Jefferson, Blount, St. Clair, Calhoun, Cleburne, Cherokee, and Etowah Counties for later tonight into tomorrow for the expectation of some snowfall accumulations.  At this time….1-2″ accumulations are expected across this area by the National Weather Service.

Huntsville has issued a Winter Storm Warning for Marshall and DeKalb Counties….this includes the cities of Fort Payne, Mentone, and Guntersville.  They have a Winter Weather advisory for the surrounding counties east of I-65.

We are watching the upper level low that is extremely compact at this hour over portions of Texas move eastward with a developing surface low in the Gulf of Mexico.  Pressures along the Louisiana Coast are down to 1006mb and some 1004mb pressure are indicated by bouys in the Gulf of Mexico.  The stronger this surface system can become….the better the chance for accumulating snow for East Alabama.  Here are the current pressure fields from the Gulf coast.