Severe Weather Potential on Friday

A vigorous storm system moving through the center of the nation has delivered feet of snow to Colorado including the Denver metro area and is also delivering strong to severe storms across portions of SE Oklahoma/NE Texas/Western AR/Western LA. As of 2 PM CT, 3 tornado watches were in effect.

The entire storm system will be moving eastward through Friday. Storms will likely continue through the overnight hours. Currently, much of the storm activity is broken but as the overnight wears on, I anticipate a squall line, or line of storms, to come together from Arkansas southward into extreme eastern Texas. This will mean the main threat with these storms will become mainly straight-line gusty winds with only a few isolated tornadoes on the "book-ends" of any bows that occur. The image below depicts this occurrence. In picture "D" the book-end vortexes are occurring at "a" and "c". Notice how the wind flow is circulating in these locations. Typical tornadoes that form in these circumstances are usually no stronger the EF-1 but that can still produce some structural damage, especially to modular homes.

The squall line will propagate slowly eastward and may weaken some during Friday morning. Regeneration is possible later during the afternoon hours across Mississippi and moving into portions of western Alabama. All who live in Arkansas, eastern Texas, Louisiana, western Tennessee, Mississippi and extreme western AL need to stay weather aware and keep your eyes to the sky for the potential of severe weather.

I have also completed a separate post today looking at the Halloween evening forecast for all those "Trick or Treat" plans. What will the weather be for where you live, a Trick or a Treat? Find out here.