A solid squall line extends nearly 350 miles tonight from near Effingham, Illinois to Clarksdale, Mississippi.
A nearly unbroken line of severe thunderstorm warnings extends from DeSoto County in Northwest Mississippi to Jasper County in Illinois.
One tornado warning is thrown in at the northern end of the line, for Wayne County in Illinois.
A new weather watch is being issued for southeastern Illinois, southwestern Indiana, western Kentucky and western Tennessee. I think it will still be a tornado watch since there is a small threat of a tornado still as the powerful upper trough swings northeastward.
There have been over 100 reports of wind damage and four tornado reports today. Two people were injured when a fireworks stand blew over in Mexia, TX with the people in it.
The good news is that the southern end of the line over northern Mississippi is having a hard time staying together because of warmer air aloft. The only warnings are right along the Mississippi/Tennessee border. We still expect the line to get into Northwest Alabama around 10 or 10:30 tonight. But with the main dynamics lifting out to the northeast with the surface low and upper trough, we may escape major problems.
Check the weather periodically through the evening and set your Weatheradio before going to bed just in case anything gets out of hand, but the severe weather threat definitely appears to be low.
It is warm and breezy across Central Alabama tonight. It is still 72F at Tuscaloosa, 69F at Birmingham and 68F at Anniston. A few showers were showing up on radar over Pickens and Greene Counties from about Carrollton to west of Eutaw. Showers will continue to pop up through the evening hours ahead of the main line and cold front.
Rain will diminish during the morning hours on Sunday. Temperatures will fall into the 50s during the morning and hold there through the rest of the day. Skies will clear Sunday night with lows in the upper 30s.
