Severe Weather Threat Moves Toward the Southern US
Southern parts of the U.S. are in for severe weather later this week, mostly involving thunderstorms, damaging winds, hail, and isolated tornadoes.
On Tuesday, a strong cold front is moving across the Central Great Basin and Southwest. As the cold front pushes toward the Texas Panhandle, severe weather will begin Wednesday into Thursday.
This article breaks down the forecast and impacts by location.
Isolated Tornadoes May Hit Texas
Forecasters currently predict thunderstorms will develop Wednesday evening across western Texas, then move east overnight.
Additional thunderstorms will develop early Thursday and move north toward the Dallas/Fort Worth area. These storms could produce wind gusts up to 60 mph, heavy downpours, and large hail. An isolated tornado is also possible.
The Houston area will also get widely scattered thunderstorms Thursday morning, with wind gusts nearing 40–50 mph, small hail, heavy rain, and a potential isolated tornado.
Tornado Threat Moves Toward Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee
Forecasters call for showers and thunderstorms throughout the day across Mississippi into western Tennessee.
These showers are expected to move east across Arkansas early Thursday and consolidate into a line of thunderstorms. Memphis will get wind of this activity, resulting in thunderstorms producing wind gusts up to 60 mph, large hail, heavy rain, and isolated tornadoes.
Further south across central Mississippi, thunderstorms may be more isolated to widely scattered, producing strong wind gusts, large hail, and heavy rain.
The tornado threat may be more enhanced initially, especially in Jackson, with the potential for more discrete thunderstorms in the midday to afternoon hours.
Scattered to numerous thunderstorms, perhaps in the form of a line of storms, may push through New Orleans by Thursday afternoon and evening. Wind gusts to 60+ mph, large hail, and heavy downpours are possible, along with an isolated tornado.
Heavy Rain and Hail Main Threat to Georgia
Scattered to numerous showers and thunderstorms, potentially in the form of a line of storms, may push through the Atlanta area Thursday evening and overnight. Direct impacts will be 40-50 mph wind gusts, small hail, and heavy downpours.
Stay ahead of severe weather. Set custom severe weather alerts in your Weather by Tomorrow.io app.
Jim Bishop
Jim Bishop is an Expert Meteorologist for Tomorrow.io. He has been forecasting all aspects of weather and temperature patterns globally for seventeen years in the private sector. His forecasting experience at Tomorrow.io covers aviation forecasting, lightning/severe weather alerting for live sporting events around the world, in addition to long-range weather forecasts. Prior to joining Tomorrow.io, Jim worked as a meteorologist in the energy industry for fifteen years, where he became highly skilled in medium-range and sub-seasonal temperature forecasting, as well as wind forecasting at the wind turbine level. Jim earned his B.S. in Meteorology from the University of Oklahoma. He has been storm chasing since 1999 and has documented some of the largest tornadoes on record.
