Dangerous Day: Strong, Long-Lasting Tornadoes Menace Large Area In South

Area in pink is under a high risk of tornadoes today and tonight
The broad red area surrounding the pink also has a 
significant risk of strong tornadoes.

UPDATE: 12:30 p.m. EDT

The National Weather Service at this out is expected at any minute to issue a special type of tornado warning called a Particular Dangerous Situation warning.

This is reserved for the rare times when a weather hazard is especially, super life-threatening.

All the ingredients seem to be coming together, especially in Mississippi and Alabama, for a prolonged period this afternoon and tonight with a strong risk of intense, long-lasting tornadoes. 

There is one area in particular along the Mississippi/Alabama border where 

there is a 45 percent chance of a tornado within 25 miles within a given point in that zone.

That is really an extraordinarily high risk, among the top probabilities on record. This is only the sixth time in the past 15 years in which there was such a high risk. 

I honestly don't know how we're going to get through today and tonight without tornado fatalities. Just praying the strongest, longest lasting tornadoes stay out over rural, open country. 

This tragic show should begin by mid-afternoon. 

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION:

Thunderstorms, a few of them severe, were roaming around parts of Texas and Oklahoma early this morning, clueing us in to what will be a dangerous tornado day in many southern U.S. states.  

I already saw at least one tornado warning in Arkansas before dawn today. 

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center (SPC) pasted a high risk zone for severe weather, including the likelihood of strong, long-tracked tornadoes in an area centered around Mississippi.  

The SPC has five alert levels for severe storms, "high" obviously signaling the biggest danger.  

High risk storm alerts are fairly rare, only being issued on average once or twice a year. 

A broad area encompassing most of Alabama, much of Louisiana and Arkansas and southwestern Tennessee is in almost as strong a risk for large, dangerous tornadoes today and tonight. 

The risk is so great that tornado shelters are opening for people in Mississippi and Alabama today.  The governor of Alabama has already declared a state of emergency ahead of the storms. This move activates emergency response centers, among other things. 

A number of school districts have either shut down classes for the day or will have early dismissals.  They don't want kids in vulnerable schools, or worse out on the highway in school buses, during tornadoes.

People are also being urged to have bicycle or motorcycle helmets in their safe spaces to wear if debris falls during a tornado.  It's also helpful to have an air horn with  you.  If you can't get out, rescuers will find you if you're blowing that horn. 

If you have friends and relatives in the South, let them know now about the risk, especially if they tend not to be weather aware. 

THE POVERTY FACTOR

As meteorologist and severe storms expert Stephen M. Strader pointed out on Twitter last evening, the highest risk of tornadoes coincides with a zone where there is a lot of poverty. Strader calls the situation "a recipe for fatalities."

Think about it. People who have money live in sturdier homes, often with basements where they can take shelter in a tornado. They have many ways to receive tornado warnings, such as weather radios, phone apps and big screen TVs. They can move temporarily into a hotel if their home is damaged. They have insurance. They have sick leave at work, so on a stormy day, they can hunker down. 

Many poor people live in flimsy structures, often mobile homes. They might not have access to weather radios  or phone apps.  The areas under the gun today and tonight in Mississippi and Alabama has some of the highest concentration of mobile homes in the nation.

People who live in mobile homes are being urged to leave now, and go to tornado shelters or to friends and relatives who live in sturdy buildings. 

However, low-wage people often aren't allowed to take time off from work, or don't get paid if they don't show up. Somebody's got to take care of the kids. They don't have the money to gas up the car and waltz into some shelter. So, they'll take their chances and stay put in their mobile homes.

There's Strader's recipe for fatalities.  This is all another excellent argument in favor of a living wage for Americans. 

MULTIFACETED DANGER

A lot of other factors make today and tonight's expected tornado outbreak dangerous. 

The storms will come in multiple waves. Mississippi is expecting three rounds of dangerous weather. Round one is early this morning, as there already is a tornado watch in effect for northern Mississippi as dawn breaks.

Another much more significant threat of powerful supercell thunderstorms with tornadoes this afternoon, and another round of powerful storms and likely tornadoes tonight. 

The forward motion of the storms today and tonight will be quick. So that means less lead time between the time warnings are issued and the moment when the tornado hits. 

Risk for more damaging tornadoes continues tomorrow,
especially for the area depicted in red

Since there will be multiple areas of dangerous storms happening all at once, who's getting hit where and who's in danger at the moment will be confusing, especially for the public who might not know which county they live in, or exactly where the warning is. 

The National Weather Service and local meteorologists do a fantastic job with warnings, but they have only so much control over how people react to the warnings. 

As I've pointed out before, when people receive tornado warnings, it's human nature to seek visual confirmation a tornado is coming.  Do you see a funnel cloud? Is there debris in the air? When you get a tornado warning, you're not supposed to go out and look for the twister. But people do.

In this weather situation, common in the South, the tornadoes are often hidden behind dense bursts of rain, so you can't see them.  There's a lot of trees and hills in the South, so that blocks the view of oncoming tornadoes, too. 

As I noted yesterday, many of the strongest tornadoes with this likely outbreak will hit well into the night, when people are sleeping.  It's harder to warn people of danger at that hour. 

The threat of significant tornadoes will continue tomorrow as the storm system heads east.  The biggest threat for those tornadoes will be in fairly heavily populated areas of the Carolinas and Georgia.