Full Notification

Possible Severe Weather on Saturday

Date: Mar 21 2013 7:56 AM

A strong storm system is expected to move eastward across the Central Plains on Friday evening. As this system advances eastward Friday night, a warm front will lift quickly northward across the Gulf Coastal States leading to a widespread area of showers and thunderstorms by Saturday morning. While the potential for severe weather will initially be low on Saturday morning, the severe threat is predicted to increase by the afternoon hours as the warm front moves further inland. Moreover, storms could intensify Saturday night as a strong upper level disturbance moves into the Tennessee River Valley. The threat for severe weather (and storms) will come to an end by mid morning Sunday as a cold front sweeps across the region.

At this time, our focus is on the potential for isolated tornadoes (especially Saturday afternoon and evening) along with damaging winds and large hail with these storms. There still remains some uncertainty with how far inland the unstable airmass will be able to go, but this system appears to have better potential for severe weather than previous storm systems this spring.

We are also watching the potential for heavy rainfall. Fortunately, the overall duration of this system is expected to be around 24 hours, decreasing the threat for a sustained heavy rainfall event. However, we are still anticipating much of the area to pick up around 2 inches of rainfall with isolated heavier amounts up to 4 inches through Sunday morning. While this should not be enough to cause widespread flooding concerns, normally flood prone areas will be vulnerable to some minor flooding should this amount of rainfall occur.

We also anticipate that the runoff from the rainfall will at least move several area streams and rivers back into the action stage and possibly minor flood stage by the middle of next week.

So in summary:
**Potential for severe weather starting mid morning Saturday and continuing into Sunday morning.
**All three severe weather impacts are possible - isolated tornadoes/damaging winds/large hail.
*Locally heavy rainfall is possible with widespread 2 inch rainfall amounts and isolated 4 inch maximum totals.


See www.dothanhoustoncountyema.org for graphics and updates.
WWW.RICKEYSTOKESNEWS.COM