The NWS just issued a Tornado Watch for approximately the north half of Alabama. Please scroll down to see a list of all the counties. It goes until 2:00 a.m. CDT.
We also have the first thunderstorms of the day developing across North Alabama. At 7:20, they were lined up from Central Calhoun County in East Alabama and extending WNW across North St. Clair, Central Blount, Central Cullman, North Winston and South Franklin Counties. The stronger ones were over West Cullman County and the SE edge of Franklin County. They were moving generally ENE. There is some lightning return from these storms, mainly between Double Springs and Cullman.
These are not the main thunderstorms that will affect Alabama later tonight. Some vicious thunderstorms were across North and Central Arkansas and moving into extreme West Tennessee. Others were over Central and South Missouri extending into SE Oklahoma.
There has been an explosion of tornado warnings coming out of that area and the lightning return is phenominal.
