00:00As we head through May, we're getting closer and closer to the historical peak of our severe weather season.
00:06It's been a busy, severe weather season.
00:09A couple of ways I can show you that.
00:11I want to show you the tornado reports.
00:14Now, these are the reports.
00:15They won't be finalized this year until next year, but you get a sense on how busy it has been.
00:22Take a look at this.
00:24These are the reports, almost 600 reports of tornadoes so far.
00:29The historical average, about 524.
00:32So we're above historical averages.
00:34How about wind reports here?
00:36Let me show you the wind reports.
00:38Same story here.
00:39The report's almost 3,800 compared to 2,200.
00:44So when you look at these numbers, there's no question that we are running above historical average no matter where
00:51you look.
00:52Okay.
00:53Next couple of days, we do have some severe weather,
00:56but we're certainly not looking at any outbreaks as we go through the next couple of days.
01:02Let me show you what's going to be happening here.
01:03We have a frontal boundary that's going to be headed south.
01:06We're tracking severe weather here this afternoon and tonight, and then tomorrow that front heads south.
01:11Let me show you what I'm talking about here.
01:13Let's go to a double screen here.
01:14So you have a frontal boundary here tomorrow.
01:17All right.
01:18Let me, here we go.
01:19Here is the frontal boundary.
01:21How can you tell?
01:22When you take a look at high temperatures tomorrow, look where we're at.
01:25We're in the 80s, Texas, into the southeast.
01:28That boundary right in here.
01:30So you have a boundary coming south where you have warm temperatures in the 80s.
01:35Take a look at a dew point temperature.
01:36It's pretty high.
01:37They're running well in the 60s right there.
01:40Look at that.
01:41This is actually even 70 degree dew point temperatures in here.
01:45So the frontal boundary is coming south.
01:47You can see where we have the high dew points.
01:50You can see where we have the warmth.
01:51So that tells us there's going to be some thunderstorms here, no doubt about it.
01:56But let's see how unstable the atmosphere is.
01:59This is where we look at what we call the instability, what we call CAPE, convective
02:05available potential energy.
02:07The higher the number, the more unstable the atmosphere is.
02:11This is tomorrow.
02:12And you can see this belt in here.
02:14When you start getting into the yellow, that means you have a lot of instability.
02:19You're going to have a lot of rising motion.
02:21So it certainly means thunderstorms.
02:24The question is, how much energy do you have?
02:26If you think about it this way, you're going to get the thunderstorms with the front, the
02:31fact that it's warm, it's humid, and you have an unstable atmosphere.
02:34But what dictates how much severe weather there's going to be is based on how much energy there
02:40is.
02:41A couple of ways we can look at that.
02:43Let's take a look at the 500 millibar flow here.
02:46Here's what's going on tomorrow.
02:48You've got all this energy, but it's back in here.
02:51Your instability is in here.
02:53I don't see a lot of energy.
02:55There's enough, but I don't see a lot.
02:57By late in the day, you have little impulses going through this area.
03:01Another way to look at it, one of my favorite things is looking at the low-level jet.
03:04The wind's at around 5,000 feet.
03:06Another way to measure energy, not only in the 500 millibar.
03:10But how do you measure energy in the atmosphere of wind?
03:12How much wind do you have?
03:14I like looking at this.
03:15It's about 5,000 feet.
03:17And I'm going to show it to you right here.
03:19So tomorrow, here we go tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon.
03:22Watch this.
03:23Right in here.
03:25Tomorrow evening into the morrow night.
03:26You see that?
03:27Not only do you have a little belt of wind.
03:29It's not strong, but what is a little concerning is that it's increasing in time.
03:35You go from very little.
03:36You're actually following this jet energy down here.
03:39Watch it come northward.
03:40Tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon, tomorrow evening.
03:44All right?
03:45Some energy there.
03:46Let me show you the surface map.
03:48And you can kind of see tomorrow afternoon.
03:50Watch this area right in there.
03:52Right around Interstate 20.
03:54In here across Mississippi and Alabama.
03:57That's an area to watch.
03:58And as a result, when you take a look at our severe weather threat tomorrow,
04:03lo and behold, that's where we're looking at the severe weather tomorrow.
04:08In that area, I-20.
04:11From Shreveport, Jackson, up in the northern Mississippi.
04:16Now, because we don't have a lot of energy, I'm not expecting a tornado outbreak or anything like that.
04:21But I do think there will be a handful of tornadoes.
04:23When you say isolated tornadoes, we're generally talking, you know, single numbers.
04:28I think it's a few.
04:30Four, five, six.
04:31Shouldn't be anything more than that.
04:32But I do think there's going to be some hail because of the instability.
04:36It's pretty high.
04:37And there will be locally damaging wind gusts here.
04:40We have wind gusts 55 to 65 miles per hour.
04:43That's on the threshold of severe weather, which is around 58 miles per hour.
04:46And also, we have an AccuWeather local storm max of 75 miles per hour.
04:52Now, this front's going to be heading eastward as we head toward our Thursday.
04:58But as it heads eastward, I want to show you something pretty interesting here.
05:03When we look at the energy, the low-level jet, let's go back to this graphic here.
05:09I'll put it in the two-shot.
05:11So this is tomorrow evening, Wednesday evening.
05:14You see this area.
05:15Watch it increase.
05:17This is 2 a.m. Thursday.
05:19It reaches its maximum Thursday morning here across the Carolinas.
05:24Thursday morning.
05:26Now, that's not timed well for severe weather because typically you want severe weather during the maximum heating of the
05:32day.
05:32If you look at temperatures during this time frame as we head toward Thursday morning, I mean, they're warm.
05:41Thursday morning, they're warm, but you're talking about 60s and 70s.
06:14So it's just not timed out right.
06:15As we move into Thursday.
06:17And that's why, when you look at the forecast here, take a look at it, we just have some risk
06:23for severe weather on Thursday.
06:25From the Carolinas all over the way back toward the central Gulf Coast states.
06:29We don't even have tornadoes mentioned because the energy doesn't line up to when you have the maximum heating, which
06:37would be in the afternoon.
06:39Severe weather over the next couple of days, but certainly not as much as we've seen throughout the month of
06:45April.
06:45The grossole.
06:45That's a major thing.
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