Special Weather Update

...Severe Weather and Flooding Possible Today...
The National Weather Service has issued a Coastal Flood Warning until 7am Tuesday. A Flash Flood Watch Through Tuesday Afternoon...and a Wind Advisory through 1 am this morning for Mobile and Baldwin Counties.

A strong warm front is generating showers and thunderstorms this morning across much of the northcentral Gulf coast region. Some of these storms are producing heavy rainfall rates on the order of 1/2 to 1 inch per hour.

At 10:53 am, weather radar indicated the strongest activity was located over Mobile Bay with additional heavy showers across the northwestern portion of the city of Mobile and northwest rural Mobile county. Additional persistent moderate showers were indicated across nearly the entire metropolitan area and these will continue through the next few hours and likely persist off and on until the overnight hours. Some of these storms may be severe. Due to strong low level windfields aiding in thunderstorm rotation, isolated tornadoes will be the main threat. Mariners should be alert for the likelihood of numerous waterspouts throught the Gulf coastal waterways this afternoon.

In addition to the threat of severe weather the strong storm system is aiding to generate strong surface winds on the order of 20 to 30 mph. These windfields will likely increase as the warm front moves through. Non-thunderstorm winds occasionally gusting to 40 mph may become possible later this afternoon. This will aggravate an ongoing coastal flooding situation across lower Mobile and Baldwin counties and areas along the Mobile Bay. Several reports of coastal flooding have been recieved from the Dauphin Island area this morning. While high tides have passed for the day additional tidal piling of 2-3 feet above normal can be expected throughout the remainder of the day, and the flooding threat will persist to tomorrows high tides around 6 a.m.

JG