A new tornado watch has been issued for West and South Alabama. It includes Pickens, Tuscaloosa, Bibb, Chilton and Almore Counties and points south. It goes until 9 p.m. tonight.
It is not a PDS (Particularly Dangerous Situation) watch.
The situation over Southwest and South Central Alabama will become critical this afternoon in the area of higher instability and very strong upper winds comes together ahead of the main squall line.
Here are the new experimental probability statistics from SPC on this watch. SPC is sitll expecting a fairly big event for Southwest and Central Alabama. The numbers were not nearly as impressive for the North Alabama watch.
WT 0858
PROBABILITY TABLE:
PROB OF 2 OR MORE TORNADOES : 80%
PROB OF 1 OR MORE STRONG /F2-F5/ TORNADOES : 30%
PROB OF 10 OR MORE SEVERE WIND EVENTS : 90%
PROB OF 1 OR MORE WIND EVENTS >= 65 KNOTS : 30%
PROB OF 10 OR MORE SEVERE HAIL EVENTS : 80%
PROB OF 1 OR MORE HAIL EVENTS >= 2 INCHES : 30%
PROB OF 6 OR MORE COMBINED SEVERE HAIL/WIND EVENTS : >95%
&&
ATTRIBUTE TABLE:
MAX HAIL /INCHES/ : 2.0
MAX WIND GUSTS SURFACE /KNOTS/ : 70
MAX TOPS /X 100 FEET/ : 550
MEAN STORM MOTION VECTOR /DEGREES AND KNOTS/ : 24035
PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION : NO
