The area under threat of heavy weather stretches from southeast Texas through the Florida Panhandle on the Gulf Coast to Michigan. The biggest threat is in parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, which have been rated a level 4 out of 5 or ‘moderate risk’ by the National Weather Service’s Storm Forecasting Center (SPC). These include Jackson, Mississippi and Monroe, Louisiana.
“Significant severe storms, including widespread damaging winds, and at least a few tornadoes are expected, especially overnight in parts of northeastern Louisiana to Mississippi,” the SPCA said.
The SPCA also warns that some areas, especially those in the region called “moderate risk”, may experience hurricane-force winds, which are winds of at least 74 km / h.
The overnight will raise the greatest concern for these dangerous storms, but the threat will start earlier in the day.
During the day of Friday there will be showers and thunderstorms across the southeast, some of which may become severe. Severe thunderstorm warnings have already been issued for some of the storms on Friday morning. The biggest threats from these storms are hail and wind.
By early afternoon, there will be an increase in storm activity in the main area where we are on the lookout for severe weather. It’s east of Oklahoma, northeast of Texas, northern Louisiana and much of Arkansas.
The SPCA expects several storms to form in the region, although there may be storms early Friday afternoon, the serious risk will continue until Friday evening.
By Friday night, scattered storms are forecast to form further east in Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee, and the worst storms could unfortunately happen after sunset.
“While tornadoes are possible, it appears that straight winds will be the most important issue,” said the National Weather Service in Jackson, Mississippi. “That said, there may be wind damage that looks like EF-0 to EF-1 type (tornado) damage, so people should definitely take the wind threat seriously.”
The rest of the South was also able to handle several storm surges. The weather will only clear up west of the Mississippi River on Saturday morning, while the east of it will probably still be stormy.
Threat shifts east Saturday
The storm system causing this expected eruption of severe weather will continue to move east, which will also force the thunderstorms to move east.
The severe weather threat will move more to the southeast on Saturday. With very severe weather conditions, the strong storms usually occur late in the day, but we could see persistent, threatening storms continuing Friday night through Saturday.
On Saturday, the area most at risk for severe weather is off the Gulf Coast through northern parts of Alabama and Georgia. These include cities such as Atlanta, New Orleans, Birmingham and Mobile.
Tornadoes do remain possible, especially near the Gulf Coast. The storms by this time are likely to have developed more into a line storms instead of the multiple lines and the super-storming thunderstorms, which are the discrete storms that are expected Friday through Friday night.
By Saturday night, the serious threat will begin to subside. As the storms near the East Coast in Georgia and the Carolinas, it could disappear as showers move to central Florida.
Rounds of storms can cause flash floods
This storm system will collect a lot of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, which could cause the rain showers to drop from Friday to Saturday.
In some areas, especially centered around Mississippi, several severe storms are forecast, which could cause the risk of a few hours of rainfall exceeding 2 inches per hour.
The rainfall amounts will vary as it depends on the thunderstorms, but in general rainfall is forecast for a large part of the South. Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle are likely to see the largest areas to see totals between two and five inches.
There will be a period of drier weather for this region by Sunday, but the next chance for rain is likely to arrive on Tuesday.