Isolated tornado risk to develop in southeastern US

A massive winter storm unleashed snow and ice across dozens of states over the weekend before snow and ice expanded into the eastern United States on Monday. However, wintry weather won't be the only impact of the system as it heads eastward. AccuWeather meteorologists warn that severe thunderstorms could erupt in warmer air along the southern edge of the storm into Monday night.

Some of the thunderstorms that will ignite across northern and central Florida, southern and central Georgia and perhaps as far to the north as the eastern parts of the Carolinas could turn severe and spawn strong wind gusts, flash flooding and the potential for a few isolated tornadoes. In the strongest storms, winds may be strong enough to knock over trees and lead to power outages.

"A small number of the strongest storms could produce a brief tornado, especially from northern Florida to southern Georgia," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Brett Anderson said.

Thunderstorms are forecast to push eastward across northern Florida, and southern Georgia into the early evening on Monday.

"During Monday night, heavy, gusty and perhaps isolated severe thunderstorms are expected to shift to the upper and middle part of the Florida east coast, the low country of South Carolina and the Outer Banks of North Carolina just ahead of the leading edge of colder air," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Paul Walker said.

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Once colder air arrives, the severe weather threat will end in the Southeast, but on Tuesday, it is possible for some locally heavy storms to erupt in South Florida, where the arrival of cold air will be much slower.

Severe thunderstorms are no stranger to the Southern states in the winter. On occasion, winter storms traveling over the interior of the U.S. can create enough of a surge of warm, humid air from the Gulf of Mexico and the western Atlantic to produce damaging thunderstorms and tornadoes, especially when a strong jet stream is present overhead.

A tornado that struck the Birmingham, Alabama, suburbs at night on Jan. 25, reached EF3 strength, killed a boy and injured a dozen other people. Just a couple of days later, on Jan. 27, a tornado struck Tallahassee Airport, Florida, and caused significant damage.

More recently, severe thunderstorms broke out, and an EF0 tornado struck North Seminole, Florida, in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area on Sunday, Feb. 14, ransacking a retirement community.

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