Severe weather outlook for Friday and Saturday

SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MEMPHIS TN / MEMPHISWEATHER.NET
633 AM CDT FRI MAY 9 2008

...A SIGNIFICANT SEVERE WEATHER OUTBREAK IS POSSIBLE ACROSS PARTS OF THE MID SOUTH SATURDAY AFTERNOON AND SATURDAY NIGHT...

...THE MEMPHIS METRO AREA HAS BEEN PLACED UNDER A MODERATE RISK OF SEVERE WEATHER FOR SATURDAY AFTERNOON AND SATURDAY NIGHT...

LOW PRESSURE WILL DEVELOP OVER THE SOUTHERN PLAINS SATURDAY AND MOVE INTO THE MIDDLE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY SATURDAY NIGHT WHILE A WARM FRONT SURGES NORTHWARD INTO THE MID SOUTH. THIS WILL BRING A WARM...MOIST...AND UNSTABLE AIRMASS INTO THE REGION AHEAD OF A STRONG COLD FRONT THAT WILL APPROACH FROM THE WEST. SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS ARE EXPECTED TO DEVELOP WELL AHEAD OF THE COLD FRONT...NEAR THE WARM FRONT...SATURDAY AFTERNOON AND EARLY EVENING. AN ADDITIONAL LINE OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS WILL LIKELY DEVELOP ALONG AND IMMEDIATELY IN ADVANCE OF THE COLD FRONT AS IT MOVES ACROSS THE AREA SATURDAY NIGHT...BETWEEN 8PM AND 2AM. THE MAIN THREATS WILL BE DAMAGING WINDS...LARGE HAIL...AND TORNADOES. THE POTENTIAL WILL ALSO EXIST FOR A FEW STRONG TORNADOES.

ALSO BE AWARE THAT THE MID-SOUTH IS UNDER A SLIGHT RISK FOR SEVERE WEATHER THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING. WHILE ONLY ISOLATED STORMS ARE EXPECTED TO DEVELOP...UPPER LEVEL DYNAMICS COULD CAUSE ANY STORM THAT FORMS TO BECOME SEVERE RAPIDLY. DAMAGING WIND...LARGE HAIL...AND ISOLATED TORNADOES ARE ALL POSSIBLE DURING THE PEAK HEATING HOURS FROM 2-10PM TODAY.

MID-SOUTHERNERS SHOULD KEEP IN TOUCH WITH THE LATEST WEATHER INFORMATION CONCERNING THESE DEVELOPING SEVERE WEATHER THREATS. MEMPHISWEATHER.NET WILL KEEP YOU UPDATED ON THE LATEST EVENTS AS THEY UNFOLD.
$$

SJM/EAP

NE Mississippi twister caught on camera!

Wow! What a storm! This picture was taken by fellow weather nut Jeff W. Williams near Booneville, MS in a town called Jumpertown at 6:49pm on May 2. He is a friend of mine that owns a personal weather station that sits right where this picture was taken from - about 2 miles SE of the tornado. Later that evening, another storm with 1" hail passed overhead and damaged his station's anemometer. That's what I call too close for comfort! Jeff indicates this was his first tornado sighting and the slight blurriness in the picture is owed to his hands shaking from nervousness!

That afternoon and evening scores of storms, some supercellular, ripped through eastern Arkansas, north Mississippi, and west Tennessee, dropping several tornadoes like the one picture above. The tornado above was classified EF-1 by the National Weather Service. The biggest storm of the day produced an EF-3 twister that devastated the town of Earle, AR in northwest Crittenden County, 25nm WNW of downtown Memphis.