It now appears likely that strong to severe storms will impact the Western and Central Gulf Coast this weekend.
Setup: A strong storm system, that is forecast to bring winter weather to portions of the Midwest, Southeast, and Northeast U.S. this weekend, will bring a cold tailing cold front across the Gulf Coast Region Saturday through Sunday.
Rain and storms: As the front sweeps across the Gulf Coast Region, it will draw deep Gulf moisture north. The Gulf moisture will allow rain and storms to develop across East Texas and Louisiana, and Mississippi late Saturday, along and ahead of the front.
The rain and storms will then shift East, into Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, Sunday into Monday.
Severe weather potential: Presently it still looks like convective available potential energy (cape) and shear will be favorable for some organized severe weather across East Texas, much of Louisiana and Mississippi, and Western Alabama late Saturday into Sunday.
As a result of the aforementioned factors, the Storm Prediction Center has placed a “marginal” and “slight” risk for severe weather across East Texas, much of Louisiana and Mississippi, and Western Alabama Saturday (see figure 1).
However, it is still too early to determine what modes of severe weather will be most likely.
The overall severe weather threat will not be high, though. And it is also worth noting that the severe weather threat does not look like it will be as great a originally thought yesterday.
Arctic air: Temperatures are still expected to drop rapidly behind the front overnight Saturday and during the day Sunday.
Also, low temperatures Sunday night are still expected to range from the upper 20s to low 40s across much of the Gulf Coast Region, with high temperatures in 40s and 50s on Monday.
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