Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Ready for a crap shoot? (Severe Weather 5/31/12)

After reviewing models, and discussing with other chasers and meteorologists.... we have decided that tomorrow is a crap shoot for tornadoes in the Southeast. As it stands, it appears that the main threat will be a squall line that will form tomorrow afternoon and push eastward. With a squall line comes damaging winds and potential for hail. If the squall line does not make its way to West Alabama prior to sunset, it will lose a lot of its strength, thus decreasing tornado possibilities even greater. We cannot with 100% certainty rule out spinup tornadoes, so we will have to keep an eye out for those. The danger in spinups is that often they are extremely short lived with minimal damage and can go undetected by radar... that is why the National Weather Service will issue tornado warnings sometimes when they notice cells or signs of rotation within the line (you can identify these types of warnings by listening to or reading the warning text... it will go a long the lines of "At 4:07PM National Weather Service radar indicated a storm capable of producing a tornado..."). This is why trained storm spotters are important. We essentially are the eyes and ears of the NWS in the field and report conditions and information back to the NWS. Just because a tornado warning is issued based on radar indication does not mean that a tornado is on the ground or will form... ***HOWEVER*** A WARNING SHOULD BE TAKEN SERIOUS REGARDLESS OF ITS NATURE.

THE RUNDOWN
Be weather aware throughout the day tomorrow. This will not be a catastrophic event, but whenever someone loses a loved one or a property is damaged it becomes catastrophic to those effected by it. As I have preached before (and Mother Nature continues to reinforce) weather patterns are ever changing. Tonight what looks like what could be a decently robust storm system set to come through tomorrow, by morning could turn out to be nothing but a simple rain event tomorrow. That fact is the only constant in weather.

WHAT CAN I DO TO BE PREPARED?
Check the batteries in your electronics in your emergency kit.
Ensure that your weather radio and phone are charged.
Find a way to get reliable weather information... especially if power is lost.
Make sure that you AND your loved ones know where to go if you receive a warning.
Do you have enough water/Gatorade/food in your emergency kit?
Do you have your medications ready to go to take with you?

WHAT ARE YOU "DUMB COLLEGE KIDS" DOING?
The same thing we always do when severe weather threatens our area... Preparing. We are prepared to launch our Storm Chasing Division at a moment's notice tomorrow. Right now it appears that we will be making a run to two potential base areas: Central Mississippi or Western Tennessee. Just because we are going to these areas does not mean that West AL is out of the woods. If we believe that Tuscaloosa or West AL is a viable threat, we'll be here. Our loyalty lies here. We were graciously trained by the Tuscaloosa County Emergency Management Agency and are members of their Community Emergency Response Team as well as graduate certified Storm Spotters through the National Weather Service out of Birmingham. We have built relationships with local meteorologists and some at NWS BMX, we are here to serve you.

Follow our Storm Chasers on Twitter (@ALStormChasers) for updates on where we are and what's going on. ***We will NOT be streaming our chase tomorrow on the live feed. We had a few technical difficulties the last trip out, and tomorrow isn't an overwhelming threat.

If you're in Tuscaloosa or on the University of Alabama Campus... follow our group on Twitter (@UA_Weather). When school is in session, we post daily weather forecasts and always post pertinent information for Tuscaloosa residents throughout the year.


Won't be getting much sleep tonight as I'm watching the system out west for family members and trying to get a handle on what in the world is going to happen here tomorrow.

Eyes on the Sky!

PAR


Severe Weather Threat for Alabama Thursday 5/31 and Friday 6/1

We made it through the entire month of April without a single tornado warning statewide, May was relatively quiet, but it appears that could end in the next 24-48 hours.

Much of East Central Alabama finds itself withing a 10% chance of severe weather within 25 miles of any given point, and NW Alabama is within a 30% chance. NWS has a slight risk for our area, and our Storm Chasing Division director believes that may increase to a moderate risk.

Here's the Rundown:

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT
Potential for damaging straight line winds, hail, and a small spinup tornado cannot be ruled out.

Tuscaloosa's main threats will be from damaging winds, hail, and localized flash flooding from heavy rains.

Pickens, Fayette, Walker, Lamar Counties are within the 30% hatched area, so we will have to keep an eye out in these areas.



TIMING
In our area, we believe this could be a later evening Thursday going into Friday event, over by noontime Friday.


There's still a lot of uncertainty as to specifics just yet, but we will be having our Storm Chasing Division briefing tonight to go over models and plan our course. TODAY IS THE DAY TO PLAN AND ENSURE THAT YOU HAVE A PLAN OF ACTION IF SEVERE WEATHER STRIKES! I will bring you an update tonight with more specifics.

Sub Divo!

PAR