Good evening! As central Florida basks in the warmth of our spring preview -- temperatures reached the low 80s again this afternoon -- severe weather has been a huge concern across much of the southeast over the last 24 hours. A powerful upper leve low and its associated cold front marched through the southeast Sunday night and Monday, leaving with it a trail of destruction through parts of Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.

I've included the storm reports for the 24 hours ending Monday morning: the red dots you see on the map are all of the individual tornado reports made while the blue dots are reports of severe hail. Of course, there weren't 21 tornadoes late Sunday night and early Monday morning, some are multiple reports of the same, long-tracked tornado moving through different communities. With lots of cold air aloft, these storms also reported produced hail up to softball size -- surely large enough to do significant damage of its own!

Some of the worst damage was in Jefferson County, Alabama -- the county where Birmingham is located. That is where the two reported deaths occurred, likely from the same long-tracked tornado. Many houses were leveled in this particular area with other houses sustained significant damage. The worst part (but not uncommon in situations like this)? The worst of the weather struck in the middle of the night, catching some residents off guard. This is why we emphasize how important it is to have a NOAA Weather Radio on when you go to bed on nights when severe weather is possible: the alert tone may very well save your life.

As the system moved east into eastern Alabama and Georgia after daybreak, it lost a lot of its punch. Why? The upper level energy fueling the storms a night ago tracked in the Mid West and Great Lakes, away from where the supply of unstable air was located. The high pressure ridge parked off the east coast of our state was just too strong to fuel severe weather farther to the east and south. Even though we could use the rain, rainfall totals are almost 2" below average so far this year, we don't need the severe weather and fortunately we won't have to worry about it. The high is so strong that this once powerful storm/cold front will essentially fall apart across north Florida tomorrow into Wednesday.

The next cold front that does have a chance to bring central Florida rain is still a few days off : late Friday into Saturday. We'll also feel a cool down, too, by the end of next weekend.

Have a good night!

Brian Monahan