Today's severe weather environment spanning from Louisiana to Georgia strikes me as a prime setup for kinky, QLCS (quasi-linear convective storm) segments producing corridors of damaging winds and a few tornadoes.
Deep moisture will initially be limited to the Gulf Coast early in the afternoon, but the response from an approaching upper-level wave will be an increasingly strong low-level jet approaching 50-65 knots at 850 mb. Dew points in the middle 60s will be transported northward into central portions of Mississippi and Alabama by early this evening.
Thick cloud-cover will mute lapse rates some across the region, though sufficient instability to spark numerous severe storms seems increasingly plausible. It remains to be seen whether the open warm sector will destabilize enough for supercellular development, but wind fields would support a tornado risk if this were to happen. Perhaps more likely to see organized severe storms develop is the strongly forced cold front which will approach from the west.
Wind fields will support updraft rotation and a tornado risk, but muted lapse rates and extensive cloud cover makes me wonder if we see a bit of a supercell/tornado, squall line hybrid by developing a few kinky QLCS storm segments that rapidly track northeast with the potential for a combination of significant wind damage, and embedded tornadic circulations.
Seems like a difficult day for storm chasers with difficult terrain and limited road options in much of the risk area, though a Delta region intercept is certainly on the table if one gets the right storm in the right spot. The more robust portion of this severe weather event may also occur after dark as storms move further east away from the favorable Delta terrain.
The Storm Prediction Center increased their risk to 'enhanced' (level 3 out of 5) on their latest Day One Severe Weather Outlook, which you can read here.
