BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) – With a First Alert Weather Day for Saturday, March 15, 2025, and a rare high risk issued by the NOAA/National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center, we’re looking at statistics on how recently and how often we’ve seen these predictions for central Alabama.
These risk outlooks are issued by the NOAA/National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center. They divide storm risk into five different categories, with 1 meaning isolated severe thunderstorms are possible, and each number up to 5, which means a high risk of long-lived, widespread, and intense severe storms.
RISK CATEGORIES:
- Marginal
- Slight
- Enhanced
- Moderate
- High
Saturday, March 15, has been classified as a high risk day (5/5) on day two, which is the day before the storms are expected.
The National Weather Service in Birmingham says there have been three high risk days since the tornado outbreak that impacted central Alabama on April 27, 2011. Those high risk days were April 28, 2014, March 17, 2021, and March 25, 2021.
Central Alabama has never had a high risk on day two, until now, ahead of the system that will impact Alabama on Saturday. It isn’t possible to have a high risk issued earlier than day two.
This was only the third time we have seen a moderate risk (4/5) on day three, which is two days ahead of when the storms are anticipated. Those days were April 28, 2014 and April 12, 2020.
You can view a description of each of the severe thunderstorm risk categories from the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center above. It will help you better understand the risk categories, what they mean, and why we take the risks so seriously.
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