It has been a long night in the Weather Office with an area of showers and storms moving into the state.
They have been fueled by a firehose of warm, moist air being shunted northward by a strong low level jet.
Birmingham’s temperature has risen 10F since late last night to 58F with a dewpoint of 56F. The Tuscaloosa temp/dp is 62F/59F. This warm advection has created waves of elevated thunderstorms all night long along the band of storms which has temporarily stalled over the area from Huntsville to Jasper to Aliceville.
There are some signs that it will begin moving east again…with winds having shifted at Meridian.
Right now, the strongest storms in Alabama are near Livingston and near Tuscaloosa. They are moving northeast quickly at over 50 mph.
A warm front is onshore over southern Mississippi into extreme Southwest Alabama and the western Florida Panhandle. Tornadoes are possible near and south of this warm front over the next few hours.
Further north, on the nose of the low level jet, some fairly large hail is possible along with the potential for damaging wind gusts in if any storms become more organized near the surface.
A weather watch may be issued for parts of Alabama and Mississippi. We will continue to monitor.
Heavy rain continues to train over the same areas and has for the past few hours since the area stalled. This could produce some flash flood issues.
In addition, winds are roaring across the area, even where no storms are involved. Tree limbs and isolated trees could be brought down by these gradient winds, which are gusting to over 30 mph frequently.
