Severe weather will likely return to millions across the South by Thursday, impacting places that experienced long-track tornadoes weather last week.
“A potential outbreak of severe storms including strong tornadoes, large hail and damaging wind will exist Thursday afternoon into the overnight across a portion of the lower Mississippi Valley and Southeast States,” said the Storm Prediction Center (SPC).
The latest forecast shows an “enhanced risk” for severe storms across Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama. This level 3 out of 5 category risks means “numerous severe storms are possible,” according to the SPC, with large hail, damaging winds and tornadoes all possible.
“The ingredients will combine on Thursday for another severe weather outbreak in the South,” said CNN meteorologist Chad Myers. “Very humid Gulf of Mexico air combined with strong rising motion will create multiple rounds of severe weather including rotating storms that could produce tornadoes.”
Just last week, states including Mississippi and Alabama took the brunt of intense storms. National Weather Service offices confirmed 41 tornadoes Wednesday and Thursday that cut a combined path length of nearly 210 miles through the South.
Tornado Chance Appears Wednesday Night
Another active weather pattern setting up across the country is introducing storm systems that will instigate more storms.
On Tuesday, a system located over the central Plains will track toward the Midwest. That could make for a few isolated severe storms in northern Missouri as well as southern Louisiana and Mississippi, a region that saw tornado warnings issued Tuesday morning; those have expired.
As that system exits off to the north and east by Wednesday, attention shifts back toward the West to the next weather system.
On Wednesday into that night, the SPC is forecasting the chance for severe weather from central Texas through Mississippi, with the greatest risk in southeastern Arkansas, northeastern Louisiana and western Mississippi. This region faces a level 2 out of 5 “slight risk” category for severe weather.
During the day, a few spotty storms could be possible across the southern Plains, with a more widespread rain near the Texas Panhandle.
Wednesday night will become more active as a line of storms forms, bringing the risk mainly for strong winds and hail, but also the chance for tornadoes closer to the Gulf Coast.
With these storms will come an onslaught of heavy rain that could lead to flooding across parts of the South.
“With the multiple rounds of storms across the region, there should be widespread 1 to 2 inches of rain across the forecast area,” said the NWS office in Jackson, Mississippi.
Severe Storm Threat Will Be Highest Thursday
Wednesday’s storms will move east, centering Thursday across the Deep South as the severe storm risk area likely expands and becomes more significant. Strong storms will be possible from the Gulf Coast through as far north as Ohio.
Some of these storms could pack “damaging winds,” and “tornadoes, perhaps strong, appear to be (a) legitimate possibility” for parts of the South, said the National Weather Service office in Birmingham.
The specific timing on these storms is still too early to know, but computer model guidance suggests multiple rounds of storms possible during the day Thursday and into that night.
The forecast shows that the atmospheric conditions will be ripe and “will support supercells capable of producing strong tornadoes and large hail,” the SPC said.
By Friday, most of the South should dry out except for parts of Georgia and the Carolinas, where weakening showers and isolated thunderstorms could linger.
