Well everyone, we had our break from severe weather, but now it looks like it’s back again with a Day 4, 15% severe weather risk highlighted by the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) over parts of Texas, Louisiana, and even a little bit of Mississippi.
This is something that I personally wasn’t expecting, but, was I expecting severe weather in the first place? No, it’s February! Although, it may feel like it’s still very cold, severe weather season is just a few weeks away. The most active month for severe weather is in the March – May months.
Analysis
Anyways, back to this Day 4 risk. Here’s what the SPC has to say about this:
“Models are in good enough agreement for Sunday/D4, depicting a progressive shortwave trough moving from the southern Plains into the lower MS Valley. This system will maintain a positive-tilt overall, but is forecast to deepen. Gradual height falls will overspread the Gulf Coast region on Sunday/D4, as low pressure moves from eastern TX across LA and MS.”
It looks like we may have an overnight threat, as they highlighted that a Day 5 risk could be issued in future outlooks. The timing will be from Sunday night to Monday morning with tornadoes and damaging winds being the main threats, so I can definitely see a tornado watch being issued for that area. Severe threats are particularly worse at nighttime than in the daytime because most people are asleep and don’t have a way to wake themselves up in case they’re placed under an alert. You should definitely have a way to wake you up in the middle of the night if a warning gets placed under your area, like a weather radio.
Summary
All in all, this seems very interesting, and a Severe Coverage Mode activation is definitely possible given the current state, but only time will tell. Make sure to stay tuned to the Xtreme Weather Discord and official weather sources for more updates on this event!
