Severe Weather, Saturday February 23rd.

We've had another active 24 hours, with many locations picking up another 2-3" of rainfall. This moved Jonesboro to the 5th wettest February on record. Now, it's time to focus on Saturday. The models are not in full agreement, but they are in enough of agreement to be concerned about severe weather Saturday afternoon. The details will be come more clear in the next few days. Make sure you have our Region 8 weather app for video updates. Here are my thoughts about Saturday, as of today:

• All modes of severe weather are possible: Wind, hail, and even tornadoes.
• Straight-line wind damage is the main threat.
• Timing appears to be Saturday afternoon. It's too early to get any more precise. 
• Additional 1.00-1.50" of rainfall.
• We are still keeping it a LOW risk of severe weather for now, but may upgrade that to a Medium risk. I do not expect us to upgrade to high or extreme. 

We are going to have all hands on deck on Saturday. Bryan and I will likely be in studio in case we have to break into regular programming, Zach will be out in the Central Nissan StormTRACKER. 

Let's dig into some maps. This appears to be a very dynamic system. The winds within this storm will be strong and will change with height. This first map shows is the winds about 5,000' up. I get concerned when the winds are over 35-40 kts. This map shows the winds at 5,000' will be about 65 kts on Saturday afternoon. 

In addition to the wind speed, they will be changing with height. This map shows the change in wind direction with height. Notice that the speed and direction change with height:

The air will be marginally unstable, but impressive for February:

We'll keep an eye on it.

Ryan