Pike County Forecast -- April 19, 2020

Good morning, everyone.  It's 45ºF out at the Farm. The relative humidity is 91% and the wind is out of the North at 5 mph. Hampton says the skies are "Fair" but ATL is sending mixed signals.

Oh well, by now I'm sure you've been scared by a forecaster somewhere so let's get on with it. The forecast calls for thunderstorms off and on all day. The nasty ones will be here later today so we'll get to that in just a minute. We are currently under a Flash Flood Watch until 8am.

So, let's have a look at the radar shall we?

If you'll look at the very top left of that web page, you'll see this bit of information.

That tells you how long the animation loop is -- from 0738 through 0848 (GMT).  So, it's an hour and 10 minutes worth of radar images, stitched together in a loop and animated so that you can see (generally) which way the storm is headed and how fast it's moving.

As I'm watching it, the eastern edge moves from the Mississippi/Alabama state line to Birmingham.  So, just eyeballing this thing, it will be in the Atlanta area in 2 hours and 20 minutes. Roughly.  That's about 8AM.  That might even be before half of you read this thing on a Sunday morning.  Oh well.

As always, the real details are buried in the Forecast Discussion.

"Main event looks to be along the front later in the evening for Central GA..."

"...this one is not to be taken lightly by any means as tornadoes look likely along and south of a Columbus to Macon line."

"In addition, a few strong and long track tornadoes will be possible..."

You don't have to understand all of the jargon and acronyms to understand some of it. The line you see in the radar images above is just the opening act.  The main show will be later on today.  And you need to check the weather again before it gets here. 

Currently the Hazardous Weather Outlook says (in part):

"The greatest threat can be expected along and south of I-20 with Central Georgia most favored for strong, long-track tornadoes along with damaging winds and large hail."

That's us.  So, by lunch time, I want you to look at the weather again from some local source. This could indeed get ugly.

Don Brown
April 19, 2020