AccuWeather Severe Weather Expert Guy Pearson provides the latest updates on the high risk of dangerous storms that are expected to impact over 100 million people over the weekend.
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00:00Let's take a look at that energy across Southern California here today, and we're going to barrel that to the north and east as we head toward later tonight and into tomorrow.
00:11Good day everybody. Yes, certainly this piece of energy that is currently over southwestern California is going to be expanding across the southwest today and then certainly across the central and southern plains tomorrow.
00:28And we've got the negative tilt as we've talked about with this piece of energy coming out, but you can certainly see the dynamics with this and everything expanding to the northeast and out into our high risk area for tomorrow.
00:42Now let's take a look at one of the tools we like to look at when we're looking at severe weather because you know when you think about it you need a lot of energy for severe weather.
00:51How do you measure energy? Wind. The more wind, the more energy, and the more energy that's available for these thunderstorms.
00:58You know what? When we look at this, it's called the low level jet. The wind's at around 5,000 feet.
01:04I'll tell you what, every time I look at this, it's just stunning to me about not only the amount of wind, but the widespread nature of the wind.
01:13Watch the area of gray just expand throughout the day tomorrow, Guy.
01:19Yep, certainly. It's one of the dynamic signatures with this, right?
01:26It's all that wind energy and certainly it's intensifying as it goes through the day tomorrow.
01:31And so certainly that expansive area of gray, the strong winds and the large coverage is really going to help drive those thunderstorms tomorrow.
01:41Certainly it's going to help produce some of the tornado aspect, but at the same time it's going to be a lot of straight line wind damage is what we're expecting as this line of storms develops across Missouri tomorrow and then moves northeast with time.
01:54One of the other ingredients to telltale sign for severe weather when we look at the upper air tomorrow, again, I want to go back to that, we have that strength in the upper low.
02:03But you had pointed this out on Monday, we have what's called the diffluent flow aloft, a fanning out or the spreading out of the winds aloft, and that's yet another ingredient for severe weather.
02:19Yep, certainly. With the diffluent flow here and you can basically see the arrows that we have there, fanning of the winds aloft.
02:26And so basically when we're looking at higher up in the atmosphere, if you have that diffluent flow aloft in the atmosphere, then that allows for more air to come in from underneath while that air is coming from the surface.
02:37And so that directional wind at the surface and then as we turn up through time really helps pull that column of air upwards and helps with the rotational aspect, which is one of those things that we do need for severe weather and especially tornadoes.
02:54Yeah, take a look. This is what we're looking at, directional wind shear. That's what supports the rotation.
02:59Now listen, we've been talking about this all week at you and the Severe Weather Forecast Center in Wichita and our experts here at AccuWeather HQ.
03:07This is going to be a damaging wind event. We're looking at hundreds of reports we think of damaging winds, especially in that high risk area.
03:16But while there can be tornadoes anywhere in this area, we're kind of zoning in on this area tomorrow, Guy.
03:26Yep, certainly. As you mentioned, we experience tornadoes anywhere in our some to moderate to high risk areas.
03:34But this is certainly the area that we're most focused, most concerned where all the ingredients for tornado development can occur.
03:42And so we've got better moisture here. We've got good southeasterly to southerly to westerly wind direction with height in these areas as well.
03:51And so this is really going to be our main focus, our main concern area for tornadoes for tomorrow.
03:56All right. Unfortunately, we're not done, Guy, because as we go forward here, we're looking at Saturday.
04:02Now, Saturday, it may not be as big of an area, but we upgraded this area to a high risk a few days ago.
04:13Yep. It's that second piece of energy that you talked about near the Aleutians. It works all the way through.
04:19It's right on the heels of the really dynamic system. But this one still has enough energy with it.
04:25It's going to be strong enough that it's plowing right into a really good atmospheric for tornado development.
04:32So we've got all our moisture. We've got the changing of wind directions as well.
04:36And so all that pulled back together is really then got us concerned for areas across the south here from southeastern Louisiana through Mississippi and across the majority of Alabama.
04:48Like we mentioned with the other one, we could see tornadoes elsewhere within our severe weather risk areas.
04:55But this is going to be the greatest risk area here or highest risk for tornadoes to develop.
05:00And really quickly, Guy, why are we so worried about long live tornadoes here?
05:05We're not really worried maybe as much tomorrow, but what is different about Saturday that has you concerned for that?
05:14Yep, certainly. With Saturday, you have a little bit, you know, with the main system that comes out on Friday, you have that cold front that is draped across the south.
05:23Well, as that next piece of energy comes in, you have, you know, all the different elements there.
05:28You've got the moisture, you've got the heat, you've got sort of that what we call the capping inversion to sort of keep all that energy bottled up.
05:35If you keep that energy all bottled up until that main piece of energy gets there, then as those storms develop, they have all that fuel really to feed off of.
05:45And it's a better environment from a wind direction standpoint to maintain that rotating column of air longer.
05:53AccuWeather Severe Weather expert Guy Pearson breaking it down, joining us from our Severe Weather Center in Wichita, Kansas.
05:59Guy, thanks for the information.