1PM Day 3 Convective Outlook for Sunday, January 25. THERE IS A MARGINAL RISK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS SUNDAY INTO SUNDAY NIGHT ACROSS PARTS OF SOUTHEASTERN LOUISIANA SOUTHEASTERN MISSISSIPPI, SOUTHEASTERN ALABAMA SOUTHERN GEORGIA AND THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE
SUMMARY
Strong thunderstorm development appears possible across parts of the eastern Gulf Coast states Sunday into Sunday night, accompanied by some risk for severe weather.
Discussion
Within a broadly confluent regime across and east of the Rockies, models suggest that positively tilted larger-scale mid-level troughing may continue to consolidate while progressing across and east of the Mississippi Valley during this period, downstream of broad mid-level ridging within split flow developing inland of the Pacific coast into Intermountain West. In its wake, it appears that another notable cold surface ridge will build south-southeastward to the lee of the Rockies, through much of the Great Plains and Mississippi Valley by late Sunday night. Ahead of it, models indicate that the remnants of a preceding Arctic intrusion will undergo more substantive modification, but, coupled with weak inland upper forcing, probably not enough to support significant frontal surface cyclogenesis across the Allegheny Plateau or Southeast.
Eastern Gulf Coast states
Guidance currently suggests that low-level thermal and moisture advection, supportive of weak boundary-layer destabilization, may be confined to a narrow inland spreading corridor across southeastern Louisiana through portions of southern/eastern Alabama and adjacent Georgia during the day Sunday, before being undercut/cut off by a developing cold front. It appears that this will coincide with, but generally trail to the southwest of, a modest to weak developing frontal wave across the Piedmont of Alabama into Georgia.
Strong deep-layer southwesterly flow overspreading the destabilizing environment will probably still contribute to shear potentially conducive to organized convective development. This may include sizable clockwise-curved low-level hodographs within the pre-cold frontal warm advection regime. However, forecast soundings suggest that these low-level hodographs will trend more linear, as the initially stable boundary-layer destabilizes. So the risk for tornadoes seems rather limited, but there may be a window for an evolving line of storms with potential to produce strong surface wind gusts, particularly across parts of southeastern Alabama and the Florida Panhandle into southwestern Georgia late Sunday afternoon and evening.