We continue to track a developing storm system that is moving into the Central Plains tonight. This system will drag a warm front across the Tennessee Valley overnight tonight and could trigger a few isolated showers and thunderstorms late this evening and very early Thursday morning. We are not expecting any of the storms during that time to become severe.
A warm and muggy air mass will be in place as we begin the day Thursday. Temperatures will start in the middle 60s and warm into the middle 70s for afternoon highs. A south wind will increase to 20-30 mph during the late afternoon and early evening hours. This will happen ahead of the evening storms. At this time it looks like we will have a line of strong to severe thunderstorms move into northwest Alabama between 6-8 pm. This line will be tracking to the east around 50 mph. Expect the line of storms to reach communities near I-65 between 9-10pm. This line will continue to track east and be into northwest Georgia by Midnight.
Along the line expect torrential rainfall along with strong gusty winds up to 45 mph. Some of the storms within the line could become severe and produce damaging wind gusts between 60-80 mph. These types of winds are more likely to occur where we have line breaks and bowing segments within the line of storms. These will be the same areas we will be monitoring for lower end quick spin up tornadoes. We are also monitoring the potential that a few storms could develop ahead of the main line. The most likely area for these storms to develop would be over northwest Alabama and northeast Mississippi during the late afternoon hours. Stay tuned for more information regarding this developing severe weather threat. We will begin streaming weather coverage online at waff.com and on our weather and news apps Thursday afternoon.
Cooler and drier weather will move in for the weekend with highs around 60.
Brad Travis
Chief Meteorologist
WAFF 48 Storm Team
We Track Storms
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