Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Mid-week update on weekend severe weather potential

As posted yesterday, the weather conditions are not looking pleasant for the Memphis in May kickoff and Beale Street Music Festival. Well over 100,000 people are expected to attend the annual Music Fest and the threat of severe weather appears to be increasing.

The graphics above show the severe weather threat as highlighted by the Storm Prediction Center for Friday/Friday night in the top image and Saturday in the bottom. For Friday and Friday night, Memphis is right on the edge of a 30% probability of severe weather within 25 miles of any point (say, for example, Tom Lee Park...) and a 10% or greater probability of "significant" severe weather within 25 miles of that point. On Saturday, the day 4 outlook places us squarely in the middle of a 30%+ probability of severe weather within 25 miles of any point.

What this boils down to is this: many of the necessary ingredients for severe weather are coming together and there is a chance that we will see large hail, damaging winds, and possibly isolated tornadoes in the region. In addition, due to well-above-normal moisture content of the atmosphere, the threat of very heavy rain and flash flooding is also a definite possibility. Please take all of this into consideration as you plan your outdoor activities this weekend, especially Friday afternoon through Saturday, and have a game plan should severe weather strike.

Part of that game plan might include having severe weather watches and warnings delivered to you when they are issued! Sign up for MWN's FREE Weather Alerts notification system! You can get weather alerts delivered by e-mail for any of 6 metro counties, or if you are on Twitter, sign up for Shelby County weather alerts at @shelbyalerts.

Of course, you can also keep up with the latest forecast, radar, warnings, etc. with MemphisWeather.net on the web and MWN Mobile (http://pda.MemphisWeather.net) while you are away from your PC.

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Get the latest severe weather updates and much more by checking out MemphisWeather.net on Facebook and Twitter (@memphisweather1)!

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