Thursday, December 30, 2010

Update on New Year's Eve severe weather threat


MWN is continuing to closely monitor the possibility of strong to severe thunderstorms in the Mid-South for New Year's Eve, especially with the large crowds of people expected outdoors for the Liberty Bowl game and Beale Street and other New Year's festivities. We have just gotten off a conference call with the National Weather Service office in Memphis discussing the threats, timing, and probabilities of the event.

The graphic above contains information relayed by the NWS. The greatest concern is for locations from Shelby County to the west and south, including most of eastern AR and northwest MS. These areas in purple are under a slight risk of severe weather as defined by the Storm Prediction Center. A slightly reduced threat encompasses much of the rest of west TN, including the rest of the metro and Jackson, as well as northeast MS. The primary threats with this system will be damaging straight-line winds and isolated, but possibly strong, tornadoes, especially west and south of Memphis. For the metro area, storms could begin moving in anytime during the afternoon, but particularly late afternoon (after 4pm), with a line of storms expected along the cold front during the evening hours (sometime within an hour or two of 8pm). See below for another graphic showing the meteorological setup, courtesy of the NWS. Following the cold front, rain will be likely for several hours before ending after midnight.

MemphisWeather.net will have complete coverage of this weather event. The MWN Storm Center will show the latest watches/warnings if any are issued, as well as radar imagery. Follow us on Facebook and/or Twitter (@memphisweather1) for up-to-the-minute information. Also, be sure to sign up for FREE severe weather alerts by e-mail for any metro county, or on Twitter follow @shelbyalerts for Shelby Co. alerts.

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