2/8/23 300p Severe Weather Update: Tornado Watch posted for LA/AR/MS, severe threat increases later eastward

While there are a handful of showers and storms drifting across the landscape of Louisiana and Mississippi, the current severe weather threat is low.

Courtesy: NickelBlock Forecasting App

It will be increasing in teh coming hours, though. During the last few hours, the Storm Prediction Center has been monitoring the severe weather potential.

One discussion was posted around 1230p
One discussion was posted around 230p

While they have highlighted two areas locally that warrant extra attention, they mentioned, in both cases, that the severe weather threat was limited due to a lack of meaningful instability and enough low-level shear.

Places where things will be picking up soon is across northern Louisiana, southeastern Arkansas and west-central Mississippi.

Elsewhere, the threat will increase later as the system – the same one promoting the development of the current handful of storms – gets closer.

By 6p/7p tonight storms will begin to develop with deeper cores and will likely start to rotate a bit more and with a bit more depth in the mid and low levels. By 8p I think a few severe storms will be possible.

The HRRR model suggests a few clusters of storms. Some with rotating updrafts as indicated by the Updraft Helicity map below.

Courtesy: Pivotal Weather
Courtesy: Pivotal Weather

Looking at the Skew-T data from the HRRR, the data supports some pretty stout storms.

Courtesy: Pivotal Weather

That sounding would give you a Karrie Meter of around a 3.37. But if you double the instability (an easy task if the point we grabbed the data from has been contaminated by local storms) you get a number closer to 4.5. And if you increase some of the other parameters by as little as 10-percent, you get a number closer to 5.25.

For those less familiar with the Karrie Meter scale, here is a look at it from the Easter Tornado outbreak back in 2020. It was about a 5.5 that day for roughly the same parts of South Mississippi.

This will likely be a short-lived event, though, with the first round of potentially severe storms moving through and out of the area by 11p. Then a line of less potent, but still potentially strong storms move through overnight.



Author of the article:


Nick Lilja

Nick is former television meteorologist with stints in Amarillo and Hattiesburg. During his time in Hattiesburg, he was also an adjunct professor at the University of Southern Mississippi. He is a graduate of both Oregon State and Syracuse University that now calls Houston home. Now that he is retired from TV, he maintains this blog in his spare time.

2 thoughts on “2/8/23 300p Severe Weather Update: Tornado Watch posted for LA/AR/MS, severe threat increases later eastward

  1. I agree with the other viewer … THANK YOU for continuing to look after us even though you aren’t required to do so! SO much more accurate outlooks here than on our local TV station now. The amount of rain we have received and look to receive is what has me ‘concerned’.

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