National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Regional Outbreaks of Severe Weather Through Early Next Week; Early Season Heat Wave across the South

Active spring pattern across the center of our nation with several episodes of severe weather and heavy rainfall expected into next week. The potential for very large hail, long track tornadoes, severe wind gusts, frequent cloud to ground lightning strikes and flash flooding are in the outlook. Furthermore, dangerous early season heat wave continues for the Gulf Coast states into early next week. Read More >

Event Summary

As a slow moving, but potent cold front pushed east during the late morning and early afternoon hours towards northwestern Alabama, unstable conditions began developing ahead of this feature. This was aided by some brief sunshine and breaks in cloud cover west of I-65 after noon. A strong to severe line of thunderstorms developed along and ahead of this front, as it approached northwestern Alabama between 1 and 2 pm. As a result, a tornado watch was issued for most locations near and west of the I-65 corridor at 1210 PM CDT on March 14th, 2019, as can be seen below on the right. Numerous severe thunderstorm and some tornado warnings were issued for this activity through the afternoon and into the early evening hours. One of the more significant storms produced an EF-1 tornado that affected the White City area northeastward into the Holly Pond area.


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Surface Chart at 1146 PM CDT on March 14th, 2019 Tornado Watch # 25 - Valid 1210 PM CDT

Below on the right is a loop of based radar reflectivity from 1:30 PM through 4:30 PM, when storm were the most intense. Additional severe thunderstorms occurred into the evening hours (especially east of I-65), but were much more isolated to scattered in nature. Below on the right is a link to the most current reports received that occurred with this activity. 


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Radar Loop - Valid 1:30 PM Through 4:30 PM CDT March 14th SPC Storm Reports for 03/14/2019