northgawx

Good evening Northeast Georgia,

Early this morning the Storm Prediction Center released their Day 3 severe weather outlook. This outlook covers Sunday, and places our entire area in an ENHANCED risk for severe weather. An enhanced risk is 3rd of 5 levels that can be issued, and equates to a 30% chance of severe weather within 25 miles of a location. Sound confusing? It certainly can be, but to put it simply an enhanced risk is nothing to ignore. The SPC’s maps can be seen below.

 

A strong cold front is already situated over the midwest and will bring a significant threat for severe weather over parts of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi tomorrow before shifting our way overnight Saturday and through the day on Sunday.

As usual with severe weather events for our area, timing will be everything. Right now the biggest threat appears to be damaging winds, however a few tornadoes cannot be ruled out across North Georgia including our local area. The timing for this event right now looks to come with a potential line of storms Sunday morning/early afternoon, followed by another around sunset. The initial line would likely not contain much severe, and the latest 3km NAM (North American Model) shows this line staying to our south as seen below valid for 2PM on Sunday.

While this line staying to our south would rob our area of moisture initially, it could also allow more storms to break out later in the day, as seen in this image valid 9PM on Sunday.

Thanks to strong winds above the surface and moderately unstable air, this line would likely contain strong/severe winds and an isolated tornado or two.

All that said, this is just one models take on what could happen, and lots of variables could cause this to be worse or better than depicted on this particular solution. For example the GFS and European models are slightly faster with the event, though both also show significant severe potential. One thing we know for sure is that the conditions will be in place to support severe storms, so you should be sure to have a plan in place in case of an emergency.

Stay tuned for more updates as we get closer and the small-scale details get ironed out.