A dangerous outbreak of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes is predicted to threaten the South and Southeast on Wednesday and Thursday.
Portions of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are under ‘high’ and ‘moderate’ risk prospects, as heavy hail and damaging winds are expected to move from the southern plains to the southeast, according to the National Weather Service’s Storm Forecast Center. High-risk prospects for severe weather are rare.
“The last time this happened in March was nine years ago,” said Al Roker, co-host of the program, NBC.
The affected areas are in danger of strong long-distance tornadoes that remain on the ground for a long period of time.
The onslaught of storms is expected to continue into the afternoon and overnight, the weather service said.
Tornadoes at night are especially dangerous because people often sleep and do not hear warnings. For this reason, tornadoes during the night are 2.5 times more likely to kill than tornadoes during the day. To compound the danger is the fact that the storms will move quickly under the mantle of darkness, in a region characterized by hills and trees that can block visibility even more. Rapidly approaching storms have less time to prepare.
Meteorologists are urging people to take the time now to make sure they have a way to get tornado warnings that can alert them and wake them up if necessary. This can be done by checking if mobile device notification settings are turned on.
The Alabama government, Kay Ivey, announced a state of emergency on Tuesday afternoon ahead of the severe weather forecast.
“The threat to potentially dangerous weather is increasing tomorrow in much of Alabama,” Ivey said in a statement. ‘Out of an abundance of caution, I have issued a state of emergency for all 67 provinces to ensure we are ready to act in any country. way needed from the state level. Projections show that it is likely to be a widespread event, with some of the worst weather expected Wednesday night to early Thursday morning. ‘
According to the weather service, the severe outbreak of the storm on Thursday will travel from southern Virginia to parts of southern Virginia, including the states of Georgia and the Carolinas. Widespread damaging gusts of wind are expected to continue and several tornadoes are possible.
