Severe Weather Possible Tuesday (2/2/16): MidDay Update

NOTE: This blog post is pertaining to a risk for severe weather that is forecast for Tuesday, February 2, 2016. Revisions to this forecast may be necessary so keep an eye out for updates. If you're short on time, head to the bottom for the quick version.

I mentioned earlier this morning that it looked like the threat was shifting east for severe weather on Tuesday, February 2nd. Right now, West Tennessee is still under a medium risk for severe weather for Tuesday.

I'm still getting some questions about TorCon (a tornado threat parameter from The Weather Channel) and the threat for tornadoes Tuesday so let me address that first. The animated image below shows you something similar to a TorCon - areas in yellow highlight where the threat for tornadoes could be from 12pm to 9pm on Tuesday. That being said, the threat still doesn't really give us more than a low to low-medium risk for tornadoes tomorrow. I'm holding to the forecast for a possibility for "weak" and brief tornadoes to be possible but nothing similar to what happened in West Tennessee on February 5th, 2008.



There's a best case scenario for tomorrow and a worst case. The best case scenario is that we get rain before lunchtime on Tuesday and that helps limit the amount of energy for storms giving us not much more than some thunderstorms that could have a few isolated incidents of damaging winds. The worst case is that there's a significant amount of energy available for these storms that will form sometime in the later morning - some as tornadoes - and developing into large areas of damaging winds. Either situation is entirely possible but I'm starting to lean toward the best case scenario. In both scenarios, Tuesday will be a very warm, wet, and windy day.

In summary, here's the QUICK VERSION:

• Tuesday is going to be a warm and windy day with a likely chance for rain no matter what.
• The best case scenario is that West Tennessee doesn't have a lot of energy for severe storms resulting in scattered thunderstorms during the afternoon- some of which may contain damaging winds (leaning toward this one).
• The worst case scenario is that West Tennessee gets a significant amount of energy resulting in some widespread areas of damaging winds and a few brief tornadoes.
• Best chance for severe weather would be sometime between the late morning and evening (around 12pm to 9pm).

As always, stay weather-aware, prepare, and feel free to share!

- Tom