This is Scary! Forecasters Issue Rare ‘High Risk’ Tornado Zones
When the Storm Prediction Center issues its forecasts for severe weather across the United States, they categorize the possibilities as follows:
- Marginal
- Slight
- Enhanced
- Moderate
- High
Whenever your area is shaded in green (marginal) or yellow (slight), isolated pockets of severe weather, sometimes including tornadoes, usually occur. When you get to the brown (enhanced) or red (moderate), that's when you start hearing about the possibility of tornado outbreaks, which usually include the change of strong and/or violent long-track twisters.
There was some brown and red on the map leading up to last week's deadly tornado outbreak in Mississippi.
Rarely do you see forecasters issue a high-risk (pink) zone. That pretty much means that it's a pretty good bet that residents in that area will be near dangerous severe weather which could include a violent, long-track tornado.
The tornado outlook map is equally as concerning.
The Storm Prediction Center has just issued TWO HIGH-RISK AREAS
One is for portions of eastern Arkansas, extreme southwestern Tennessee, and extreme northwestern Mississippi.
The other high-risk area includes southeastern Iowa and portions of western Illinois.
What About East Texas?
Showers and thunderstorms are possible across the Pineywoods Friday afternoon and evening. Most of the computer models show Deep East Texas getting precipitation, and a few show a few strong or severe storms flaring up.
Then again, the National Weather Service puts our rain chances at 50/50, so there may be quite a few locations that don't get a drop of rain.
As always, hope for the best and prepare for the worst...and keep the folks along the Mississippi River in your prayers.
