Deep South Storms

For the next two days, we are looking at a risk for Big Bad storms in the Deep South. However, the setup for each day is a little different, and that will bring different risks to different areas.

Let’s start with today. Moisture coming up out of the Gulf, combined with strong winds in the upper atmosphere will kick up showers and storms from New Orleans up through the rest of the Southern U.S. However, those storms look to be scattered and unorganized. Here’s how the HRRR model depicts our storm situation today. The image below is from the College of DuPage website and shows us what the model thinks will be happening around 3:00 this afternoon. Notice that there are some storms from East Texas all the way to the Atlantic, with a larger cell in the Florida Panhandle. But, also notice that the storms aren’t really organized.

Now, let’s look at tomorrow’s setup. The image below is from the same model, but now we’re looking at 8:00 AM on Thursday. Notice how the storms have formed into a squall line running out of the Gulf up into Georgia. That line will move east through the day tomorrow. To me, I expect that organization tomorrow to increase the risk for Big Bad storms capable of causing more damage. The Storm Prediction Center appears to agree and they have declared an enhanced risk for severe weather in Georgia and South Carolina during the day Thursday.

So, as we’ve been discussing since last week, there is a risk for severe weather today and tomorrow in the Dixie Alley areas. We could see damaging winds, hail, flash flooding, and even some tornadoes both days. However, it looks like the bigger risk is tomorrow running from the Florida Panhandle, through Georgia, and into South Carolina.