Early Evening Update

The Tornado Watch has been trimmed back some more, and now it only includes Jackson, DeKalb, Marshall, Etowah, and Cherokee Counties of North Alabama; however, the following Tennessee Counties are still in the watch until 8 PM: Cannon, Coffee, Cumberland, DeKalb, Grundy, Putnam, Rutherford, Smith, Van Buren, Warren, White and Wilson.

The watch will likely be cleared for all of North and East Alabama soon, but some showers and storms are still possible mainly east of US 431 through 7 PM. Heavy rain, gusty winds, and lightning will accompany the stronger storms; there is a small risk that a rotating storm could produce a short-lived tornado in the watch area this evening.

The clouds have had very, very low bases on them today because of the high moisture content of the lower atmosphere. Here’s a picture of what looks like a wall cloud that developed on the southwest side of a rotating thundershower in western Huntsville earlier this afternoon. Thanks to Courtney Naman who took the picture looking northeast from the intersection of Bradford Drive and Research Park Blvd around 2:40 PM today:

Many, many storms on days like this rotate, and they can have some good visual structure! Just because a storm is rotating, though, does not mean it will produce a tornado. Good call by NWS Huntsville for NO WARNING on this storm; it was not necessary in spite of the way it looked.

Keep up with the radar over the next few hours with WHNT.com’s Maps & Radar Page and our Mobile Applications.

-Jason
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