Severe Weather Risk Tonight

NOTE: This blog post is pertaining to a severe weather threat from the night of Wednesday, November 11, 2015.

Even yesterday, there still seemed to be a decent chance for thunderstorms to become severe near the Mississippi River tonight. The Storm Prediction Center had a slight risk (colored in yellow) for severe weather in western West Tennessee.

Now, that threat is even lower with all of West Tennessee looking at a 1 out of 5 chance or a marginal risk for storms to become severe tonight, but I would contend that that threat is even lower. 

At 9pm tonight (Wednesday), is when I expect storms will be their strongest in West Tennessee which is when a broken line of thunderstorms will be approaching the Mississippi River. After that, storms will continue to become weaker. Most of West Tennessee will have a chance for rain but thunderstorms will NOT be widespread.

If one or two storms DO become severe, the main threat will be with damaging winds. There's very little instability with these storms but there are very strong winds in the upper atmosphere. If any of these winds mix down to the surface, we could have one or two events of downed trees or power lines.

Otherwise, winds will be at their strongest just before the heaviest rain enters West Tennessee. We might see a few power outages as a result of 20 mph winds which VIPIRCast shows over Crockett county and bordering areas. 

Still, this event doesn't look like it'll amount to much more than what we had last Thursday night - a little wind and rain with occasional thunder. I'll be tracking the storms coming up on WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News!