Summary: Severe weather is a possibility on Friday across the lower Mississippi Valley and across parts of the Tennessee Valley. Damaging winds and perhaps a few tornadoes look to be the main threat.

Details: An area of low pressure is expected to push into the Great Lakes region by Friday. A frontal system is expected to extend southward from that low pressure system into the Ohio Valley and the ArkLaTex region.

Out ahead of this front, warm and somewhat humid air is expected to push northward across the Deep South as we get into Friday.

A line of strong to severe thunderstorms capable of producing damaging winds and possibly a tornado is expected to push eastward during the morning across the lower Mississippi Valley and in particular across southern Arkansas and much of Louisiana.

As we get into the mid and late afternoon hours of Friday and Friday evening, an area of low pressure may form along this front and track across the Tennessee Valley. The formation of this low pressure will help to strengthen the amount of low-level moist air that pushes northward from the Gulf. Because of this, an increase in the severity of thunderstorms is expected from late Friday afternoon through Friday evening leading to a risk of damaging winds and a few tornadoes across southwestern Tennessee, much of Mississippi and northern Alabama.

One thing that I do want to stress is that this is not looking like any sort of severe weather outbreak, but instead the first severe weather threat of 2026 across the Deep South.