Tornadoes Pummel South Mississippi

An EF-1 and EF-2 Tornado have been confirmed to hit parts of south MS this morning. Here are the details from NWS JAN:

951 
NOUS44 KJAN 162243 CCA
PNSJAN

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE JACKSON MS
434 PM CST WED NOV 16 2011

...PRELIMINARY STORM SURVEY INFORMATION...

JONES COUNTY TORNADO: 
BEGINNING POINT: 4 SE HEBRON AT 503 AM
ENDING POINT: 4.5 ESE HEBRON AT 507 AM 
RATING: EF-1, MAXIMUM ESTIMATED WINDS 95 MPH 
PATH LENGTH: 2 MILES MAXIMUM WIDTH: 50 YARDS 

SUMMARY OF DAMAGE: THIS TORNADO DEVELOPED AND DOWNED SEVERAL TREES
ALONG FRED ELLZEY ROAD, AND CAUSED MODERATE DAMAGE TO THE ROOF OF A
LARGE HOME NORTH OF THE ROAD. THE TORNADO MOVED NORTHEAST, SNAPPING
SEVERAL TREES AND HEAVILY DAMAGING AN OUTBUILDING AS IT CROSSED WEST
CREEK ROAD. THE TORNADO THEN SNAPPED A FEW TREES AND DAMAGED THE ROOF
OF AN OUTBUILDING JUST BEFORE CROSSING HIGHWAY 84, SHORTLY AFTER WHICH
IT DISSIPATED.


JONES/JASPER COUNTY TORNADO 
BEGINNING POINT: 7 W LAUREL AT 512 AM 
ENDING POINT: 2.5 N SHARON AT 530 AM 
RATING: EF-2, MAXIMUM ESTIMATED WINDS 130 MPH 
INJURIES: 15 
PATH LENGTH: 12 MILES MAXIMUM WIDTH: 300 YARDS 

SUMMARY OF DAMAGE:
THE TORNADO DEVELOPED ALONG PAT HOLLIMAN AND LEROY HILL ROADS,
DOWNING A FEW TREES. THE TORNADO MOVED NORTHEAST, WIDENED AND REACHED
ITS MAXIMUM WIDTH IN THE AREA OF SPRINGHILL ROAD, WHERE HIGH END EF-1
DAMAGE TO TREES OCCURRED. THE TORNADO THEN NARROWED TO ABOUT 150 TO 250
YARD WIDE PATH OF MID TO HIGH END EF-2 DAMAGE ON EITHER SIDE OF STATE 
HIGHWAY 15 IN THE SHADY GROVE COMMUNITY NORTHWEST OF LAUREL. SEVERAL 
MOBILE HOMES WERE COMPLETELY DESTROYED, NUMEROUS POWER POLES WERE
SNAPPED, SEVERAL FRAME AND BRICK HOMES SUFFERED MAJOR DAMAGE AND
OTHER MODERATE DAMAGE, AND EXTENSIVE TREE DAMAGE OCCURRED. A FEW
COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS ALONG STATE HIGHWAY 15 SUFFERED MAJOR DAMAGE. AS
THE TORNADO CONTINUED NORTHEAST ACROSS NORTHEAST JONES COUNTY, IT
CAUSED EF-1 TYPE DAMAGE AS IT CROSSED SHARON-MOSS AND LAKE COMO
ROADS, SNAPPING AND UPROOTING TREES AND CAUSING SOME ROOF AND MINOR
STRUCTURAL DAMAGE TO SEVERAL HOMES. THE TORNADO THEN INTENSIFIED
SOMEWHAT AGAIN AS IT CROSSED INTO JASPER COUNTY, DESTROYING THREE
LARGE CHICKEN HOUSES AND CAUSING EXTENSIVE TREE DAMAGE ALONG COUNTY
ROAD 812 JUST INSIDE THE JASPER COUNTY LINE. THE TORNADO DISSIPATED
SHORTLY AFTER CAUSING THIS DAMAGE. SO FAR, 15 PEOPLE WERE INJURED BY
THIS TORNADO, WITH NEARLY ALL OF THE INJURIES BEING RELATIVELY MINOR.

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WOULD LIKE TO THANK JONES COUNTY
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, JASPER COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, AND
MISSISSIPPI EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY FOR THEIR OUTSTANDING
ASSISTANCE IN CONDUCTING THESE STORM SURVEYS.

$$

AG/BK/EA

Weekend Forecast Update

What a great night for some high school football! The sky is clear and look at these current temps:

     

 No Freeze Warning in effect for us tonight, but I expect most of us to end up in the lower 30s by sunrise tomorrow.

If you're planning on traveling up to Starkville tonight for Bulldog Bash, I see no problems weather wise. Traffic moving smoothly along County Line Road at I-55 near the Hilton Hotel in Ridgeland, MS. Here's a current snapshot from an MDOT skycam:
                                           

As for TOMORROW, I do expect things to remain on the dry side, but I am watching some high clouds begin to stream in from the west this evening:

These are mainly high, cirrus clouds and they won't totally block the sun tomorrow, but if you're going to be out hunting early in the morning, this is the perfect set up for some some spectacular sunrises as the sun will refract off the clouds and really show a great color display. I am expecting the high clouds to stick around most of the day Saturday, and here's why:

This is a forecast sounding from the NAM valid for tomorrow at noon. Notice towards the top, the red and green lines are very close to one another- this implies that we'll see an increase in moisture in the upper atmosphere and that could result in some high cirrus clouds throughout the day tomorrow. Notice though towards the bottom, the two lines are pretty far apart- this is dry air so, like today, we'll see a big swing in temperatures from morning through afternoon because dry air heats up and cools down very efficiently. Again, Saturday will stay dry and mostly on the sunny side!

Notice the temperatures still pretty warm for this time of night just out to our west. I'm watching a storm system developing out to our west that will begin to impact our weather late Sunday and probably be out of here sometime on Wednesday.

                                           

This looks to be a pretty decent event in terms of the amount of rain some locations could pick up. Let's look at some model data from the GFS. I will point out that it has sped this system up to be an overnight Monday/ early Tuesday rainmaker, so we'll have to watch and see if it slows back down or keeps on this track. 

The top image is valid for 12am Tuesday while the bottom shows what this model THINKS will be occurring by 6am Tuesday...

Some of these storms, especially to our west and north look like they may try to get a little on the strong side so that is something else we'll have to watch out for, but we really need this rain!!

High pressure will re-claim its territory over the Magnolia state by Wednesday night and it looks as if we are going to have a fantastic end to next week, so that is something we can look forward to.

Isaiah 40:31

Jake Reed