2/18/09 FCST: MS/AL/GA

[Dave Gallaher]

It looks like discreet cells are possible in during afternoon heating in southern AL to both the MS and GA borders. The mod risk mentions possiblilty of discreet cells with strong tornadoes. Being a weak forecaster, I'll leave speculation to others in the region, but if the traditional soup clears enough, there may be some good chasing in SW AL this afternoon. Possible initiation in southcentral MS as well.

 

[Terry Tyler]

It has me very exited over here. 0-3KM helicity values 250-450 from BMX south, with low to mid 60's dewpoints and MLCAPE's well over 1500j/kg. Also looking like some kind of dry air bulge that will erode some of the cloud material along a narrow boundary. If that area remains untouched and can get good heating, with 0-6KM shear upwards of 90-100kts, things could get very interesting. Models seem to be favoring that discreet convection. Ill probably be down there when things get started.

 

[Matt Gingery]

This sort of popped up out of the blue. Up until today the concensus seemed to put this storm with a positive tilt and a more southwesterly LLJ. It is what it is, with the mid-level shear through the ceiling I think I wish I could be in SE and E Mississippi around 2 p.m. This should give some of you all that didn't get in on the Feb 10th event to get some action as well. I wonder if the Austin Family will get in on this one? It sure is close to Florida, just a few hour drive into the MDT Risk. I am tempted to go, but I would probably only make it to Jackson and it would take me 8 hours if I left now at 7:30 am. Good luck to everyone else, I will sit this out. I certainly hope we don't have a repeat of this last event. Once the situation begins to heat up and if we get some clearing ahead of the front it would be feasable to see a PDS watch, the 2nd of the season. That is becoming likely as this dry punch shoots in at the midlevels. Will need some good SFC heating during the day. I would say initiation takes place along a Tupelo to just south Of Meridian line around 21-23z

 

[Dave Gallaher]

Intermittent sunshine here in north AL as the morning wears on. I won't be able to go south due to work tonight, but the venue has wifi so I'll be keeping up, hopefully. Cloud deck doesn't seem to be too deep up here.

Wondering if Brett, Dennis or any of the central/south AL guys will be out and streaming?

 

[Taylor Campbell]

A chase without internet is very stressful. I managed to encounter a few entertaining things, but nothing compared to what I could have if I had internet available. I started off chasing the first supercell (tornado warned) that entered Carroll County, GA. The storm was located just across the AL/GA border when I decided to leave home to go about 20m to my west. I had to pick up a friend just down the road to help keep an eye out and take video/pics, while I did the driving. I than stopped at a near-by gas station to feel up, because I was near empty, after that without radar it was hard to tell exact location of the storm and in what direction it was heading, I knew when I left that the storm motion was towards the east and that if I needed to set-up somewhere for a possible tornado/wall cloud that I would have to be in the city of Carrollton. However, at the moment it appeared the storm was quickly approaching from the west, therefore I just positioned at a near-by neighborhood on top of a hill, where I could get a wide view of the storm, from that viewpoint it appeared that the storm was moving due east and that the wall cloud/tornado would be located just off to our WSW and looked to be heading our way, with the good view of the storm we stayed there for awhile, but than is started raining and an update on the weather alert radio said it was heading towards Whitesburg, therefore we were to far to the north, so we turned around and started heading towards Highway 5 that would lead us south into Whitesburg, but it was obvious that the storm was quickly out-running us to the east, therefore we stopped tracking the cell, but as we were ending the chase we encountered a short period of dime size hail on the backside. Below are images of the storm, I didn't manage to get a hail pic, because it was short lived and didn't have the time to get the camera set.

I than got word from a friend on the phone that a massive supercell was headed for Carroll County once again, so I got into position and observed a nice storm structure and a nice lightning storm on Highway 61. I missed the tornado/wall cloud on this storm as well as it was located towards the south, but I didn't really want to be caught in that mess w/ the lose of daylight.

I have video of the lightning show and will post it sometime tomorrow. Overall, I was north of the potential wall cloud/tornado w/ both supercells, due to not having internet.

More images can be found at this link http://s689.photobucket.com/albums/vv256/convectiveinflow/.