AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter explains why conditions surrounding Francine, even after it's weakened, could lead to tornadoes in Alabama and surrounding areas on Sept. 12.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00And to help us break down the latest on Francine, we are now joined by active weather chief meteorologist
00:04John Porter. John, we still have an environment here that's leading to some flood risk and also
00:10some risk on the east side of isolated tornadoes. We had our eye on one cell not far from Montgomery
00:15that had a little hint of some spin in the past hour. Yeah, I think that's the key area to focus
00:20in on as we take a look at the latest visible satellite image here. We can see some breaks in
00:25the clouds here denoted by these gray colors across parts of Alabama. So there's some more
00:31mid-level dry air working into the system today as of course as compared to yesterday. So that's
00:37why we're concerned more about a tornado threat centered on Alabama here and also toward the
00:43panhandle of Florida. Those look like they're the two main areas of concern as we head through the
00:48next couple of hours. AccuWeather experts in our Severe Weather Center have issued a notification
00:54about increasing tornado risk across Alabama. The government's National Weather Service has yet to
00:59issue a tornado watch in that area. Yeah, we're going to keep an eye on this and John, farther
01:03southeast in Florida, while there is some risk there as you mentioned, that's a little more
01:07removed from the core of this storm. So the farther northwest you go up into the Montgomery area, the
01:11greater the shear is, although there is a little more moisture slamming into the Florida coastline.
01:16Right, maybe it's a balance of those two factors because as you mentioned that
01:20there is a lot of changing wind speed with a height as you go up in the atmosphere, lots of
01:24spinning motion in the atmosphere centered across Alabama and that's why we're concerned about that.
01:29But look at these dew points, we're talking about low to mid-70s, plenty of high octane air here
01:35to power those severe thunderstorms here this afternoon. And these are going to be some
01:39thunderstorms that have very low bases here. There's an abundant amount of moisture out there
01:43and that sometimes would require a little less work from the atmosphere to get one of these
01:47tornadoes or funnels to potentially come down to ground level. They can spin up very quickly too,
01:52which is why it's very important for you to download the AccuWeather app, turn on push
01:56notifications, and if you receive a tornado warning in your community, move to safe shelter quickly.
02:02And over the next couple of days, we're going to have repetitive rounds of showers and storms,
02:06so it's not just a today situation. Overall, as the system decays, John, would we expect to see
02:11the tornado threat gradually diminish? Yeah, the tornado threat as the amount of spin in the
02:16atmosphere reduces will wane, but what will continue to increase is the flash flooding risk
02:23here over the next couple of days from Tennessee to North Georgia toward the upstate of South
02:27Carolina. Repeated downpours in the same area, that's a recipe for concerns into the weekend.
02:33And overall, the lines gradually kind of become blurred between Francine and interaction with the
02:38trough and just kind of a really murky pattern across the southeast. But dialing the conversation
02:43into that tornado threat, John, here we have the whole state of Alabama at least at some degree of
02:48risk. We do, and that can also extend it apart to Tennessee. It may be much more localized there as
02:53well, and also down to the Florida panhandles we talked about too. And then the rain potential
02:58there lingers through Friday, Saturday, even Sunday, and I know that there are some eyes on
03:02that disturbance near the Carolina coast that we have to keep an eye on. We are going to be
03:07monitoring all of that over the coming days, but our eyes are drawn to this setup here.
03:12Friday through Sunday, let's not let our guard down here from Tennessee to Georgia, northeastern
03:18Alabama, and the upstate of South Carolina, also into the mountains of North Carolina,
03:22because we're going to have this flow of significant moisture from somewhat from the
03:27Gulf, but also from the Atlantic being drawn into this storm system that's going to be very slow
03:33moving. So look for heavy thunderstorms that can persist over the same areas. I'm concerned that
03:38there could be a very significant flash flooding event in this area over the weekend, perhaps a
03:44very small area, but significant concerns. So keep track with us here at AccuWeather on the AccuWeather
03:50network and the AccuWeather app over the next couple of days. All right, thank you very much
03:54there. AccuWeather chief meteorologist John Porter with the latest as well, Francine.
03:59Impacts not over yet by any stretch. Thanks, John. Thank you.