LIVE NOW at 9: Caleb is tracking out more isolated showers/storms and prepares you for Monday

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:13]Heat. Heat.

[00:00:42]Hey there, chief meteorologist Matt Lawon tracking a severe thunderstorm warning alongside our meteorologist Caleb Blue for Newton County. Again, hail, everything we said during our six o'clock broadcast remains the same. I don't have my good microphone on here, so I apologize. It might be a little bit hollow for a second. Um, but hail, the main impact we expect to see on this storm here as it moves toward the southeast. Uh, speed on it continues about the same about 20 25 miles per hour. We'll be moving out of the area for our max south viewers here in just a moment. As you can see that kind of moving southeast. I want to bring in our meteorologist Caleb Edeloop who's been kind of tracking these. And Caleb will probably do better from the from the Chrome key on this one here as well. So, I'll send it over to you uh there here in just a moment. Um but Caleb is gonna be tracking this thunderstorm here with us. Um again, hail I think the main impact. You can see uh just kind of looking at the hail reports on this a hail swath. Uh looking potential to get some hailstones up. Uh close to around quarter size or larger. Uh Caleb, what are you seeing as of 7:12?

[00:01:47]Yeah, I think hail continues to be the biggest threat with this uh cell kind of moving through. You can see kind of what Matt just put on there, those darker shades of purple, we can actually kind of um kind of cue it or it's just kind of showcasing that probable hail. So, even these lighter shades of pink, it's just showcasing that it's possible to see hail and not even making it all the way down to the surface. But when you start to see those darker returns, that's where you can start to see some of that hail making its way down all the way to the surface. You can see all those lightning strikes starting to pop up. One thing I do want to talk about, you see all these yellow lightning strikes. That's those negative um strikes that are occurring. You can see this one lone blue one. That's a positive strike that comes all the way from the top of the cloud all the way down to the surface. Typically kind of louder, more powerful, just stronger strikes. And you can tell they're typically more rare. So, still showcasing this is a strong thunderstorm moving through the Newton County uh area and into Lauderdale as well. So, this is one of our areas we cover for the Max South region and wanted to make sure to come back on and cover that for you guys down there. So, let's go take a look back at precipitation. You can definitely tell just how um intense this storm is as it continues moving out of Blounto and kind of closer towards that county line towards New Providence. So, y'all are definitely hearing those constant rumbles of thunder. Let me see if we have a camera. We We're not that we don't have any too far down south. I know we have one in Hattisburg, but that one won't help up here uh within Newton, Mississippi. So, or at least Newton County. So, this cell is going to continue moving on out of our region and getting closer and out of our viewing area. But, we wanted to hop on continue giving you the latest look at that as it continues moving on out. So, giving you the very latest look. Let's go look at our wind. Let's try to see if there's any rotation. Wouldn't be surprised if we Well, actually, no. This one's not a rotating thunderstorm. So, this one's probably just dumping a large amount of just rainfall over you guys and possibly some hail as well. So, not quite a rotating thunderstorm that we've seen earlier. Again, uh by rotating, I don't mean the threat for tornadoes. Today continues to be pretty much almost nonzero chance for tornadoes. We really haven't seen that at all. It's been wind and hail that have been the biggest threats that continues to verify. So, those peak impacts, again, I want to say peak impacts, just showcasing kind of a worst case situation. You definitely tell those darker purples really starting to pop up here. Um, showcasing that hail is probably um occurring now.

[00:04:13]3 in or more, uh, not likely the story.

[00:04:16]This is just kind of showcasing kind of the peak worst case scenario that is occurring. But if something's reading like 3-in hail, there's a good potential that that is making its way down to the surface. So, one thing I do want to point out, you can take a look at our hail track here, and you kind of see just that purple line continue to move on through kind of outside of our viewing area or getting closer towards that county line, which will eventually mark it outside of our viewing area. And that just kind of shows um confidence on showcasing that hail uh occurring within that kind of supercell and that thunderstorm that's working on it. And so, that cell is going to continue moving on out of our area. You kind of see that increased confidence. This is almost kind of identical to uh that thunderstorm, that severe thunderstorm we started covering at the very start when we did a live update. So, that was one of the stronger ones we covered. We can already see that continue uh moving on through our viewing area down here in Newton uh County, Mississippi. Now, this severe thunderstorm warning expires at 8:15. Now, don't be surprised if you start to see this warning start to shave off as this cell kind of moves out of your area. Uh once it moves out of Newton, you're going to kind of see that line pretty much just cut through that county line, get y'all out of there as soon as it leaves Shaws County. Um but notice how the warnings extended all the way till 8:15. These are very slowm moving um cells and just kind of storms moving through our region. We can back this up and kind of see how it intensified um kind of quickly, but just moves very slowly. You can definitely tell kind of didn't quite meet that severe warning criteria just yet. This is around 6:44, which now it's 7:17. So almost I I think practically 30 minutes.

[00:05:53]And you can see kind of just the lack of distance it's traveled since then. You can already start to see those brighter returns kind of just past Blounto. We can zoom in just a little bit more to give you guys a good visual on that. All the lightning strikes that are occurring as we get closer to the 7:00 mark. Still continues to intensify. You can see those brighter returns and that warning getting issued very quickly. Um rightfully so. um with how intense it continued to um kind of quickly intensify. But taking a look at that cell continues to move on out of Newton County. It's going to get closer and closer towards Lauderdale, which some other stations cover that region. So, we want to make sure to continue covering Newton County as it continues staying within our region. Kind of already moved through Decar. So, you guys are starting to finally enjoy some drier conditions.

[00:06:39]I know it moved through Yaw City earlier on um but uh definitely enjoying those drier conditions now as that kind of um stronger cell continues to move on out.

[00:06:48]So severe thunderstorm warning in place for Newton and Lauderdale. Let's go back towards our threats again. Again, we're not really noticing any rotation here with this storm and not even the rotation with a tornado, just kind of some of the stronger storms. Those updrafts, downdrafts, they can start to get a little bit close, kind of show signs of some inflow and outflow. And if you get those tight couplets, that's typically what signifies um potentially um maybe something tornatic trying to occur. But we're not even seeing that here with this storm. So again, this is just hail based, probably also windbased, a very uh heavy wind gust out there, but uh hail continues to be the biggest threat associated with this.

[00:07:24]your large impacts. One of the things I want to point out again when we start talking about the threat for tornadoes or that shear, that rotation of the winds aloft or even reaching towards the surface, we're going to start noticing some red colors. You can see that here on our scale with that wind shear. We're not seeing any of that here. So, that is definitely a good sign just showcasing that hail continues to be that peak impact with this kind of thunderstorm moving on through Newton County. It will continue to do so getting closer towards Lauderdale, eventually making its way towards Meridian. If it stays on this track, I wouldn't be surprised if it goes just south of Meridian, but you guys will definitely start hearing those rumbles of thunder relatively soon as that uh cell continues to make its way closer and closer towards you guys. Now, that hail track continues to show hail is very probable, which let me make sure I didn't look away. Yeah. Okay, it's already starting to happen. I was telling you guys that as that cell continues moving on out of your area, you're going to see that warning start to shave off for you guys. You can already see that starting to take place for us here in Newton County. So, for those out there in Center Ridge, y'all are now officially out of the warning.

[00:08:27]You can take a look at precipitation kind of see you're still in that rainfall. So, still definitely uh hearing all those rumbles of thunder, but those higher kind of brighter colors are further down south. And this is kind of where we can expect to see some of that hail. So, if you're just north of New Providence, right along that county line, you're going to start to probably hear some of that hail um hit the roofs.

[00:08:46]Uh um maybe even if you're driving right now, we had somebody submit a video of some hail falling while they were driving, but they pulled over and just waited for it to blow on through. Uh definitely a good decision. Don't try to drive into anything. That's just a little bit too messy and too loud and just too much for you guys. We definitely don't want y'all to risk anything. So, just let it blow on by. I know these are kind of slow uh moving storms, but it'll be well worth it just kind of waiting it out in case and in instead of just trying to continue pushing through as this cell continues to move on out of Newton. Now, you can tell that direction continues to shift out around or shift out in the southeast direction. Let's see how fast this storm is moving. I'm going to do this on my phone. It's just easier that way for me.

[00:09:31]Let's see. It's moving. Yeah, still around 15 miles per hour. So, very slow moving. Let's see if I can kind of try to get a track on it for you guys. With something this slow, not too many cities around it, it's going to be kind of hard to populate some. Let's start. I mean, it's pretty much right on top of Graham.

[00:09:48]So, let's go 15 miles per hour. Get y'all the latest track. There we go. We can cover quite a few of you guys out there. So, Lost Gap by 729, Sterling by 739, Runday about 741, Stinson 758, Wolf Springs 758, Pleasant Hill 806, Zero 806, and Cliff Williams around 8:17 as well. Now, uh that's just south of Meridian. You can kind of see that other blip starting to pop up over you guys as well. So, we can kind of uh re redraw that for you guys just to include y'all, which let's kind of see the latest direction it continues to take. You kind of see that intensifying a little bit more, seeing those brighter colors start to shift its way closer towards you guys in Meridian. I'm going to look at that one more time. It's almost going straight east. We can we can do that again. Let's include you guys in Meridian. I know y'all are still outside of our kind of coverage, but wanted to give you all the very latest uh before we kind of wrap this up before it leaves our area. Kind of hitting Bonita around 7:25, Vinmill around 7:48, Alamucha, I'm going to say that. Hopefully, it's correct. By 811. See if I can I think that's the lowest I can go. Can I include more cities? Yeah. No, that's that's the lowest. So, I can go a little bit higher. Um but it's already showcasing not too many um communities within that area. So, and that's also in Lauderdale uh county. So, not one that we cover here at Mississippi Live Weather. So, make sure to continue tuning in uh to your respective stations and companies down there. there. They'll make sure to continue keeping good care of you guys as that storm continues making its way into that county. But you can take a look at those lightning strikes. I mean, very abundant. 170. It just went up just a little bit, showcasing still very strong thunderstorm occurring. I'm still covering it up. I love talking about the lightning strikes, but you can never see them behind my head, but 170 strikes.

[00:11:37]You can see a lot of them continue to be in that very intense part of the cell, continuing to move on out of Newton. And I talked about some of those blue strikes. Um, a little bit more rare. You can see a little one kind of embedded within that. Those are those positive strikes. Take a look at that. It'll pop up right there. Those are positive strikes. So, those come all the way from the top of the cloud, top of the storm, super high up in the sky, and find a way all the way down to the ground. Um, those are typically probably those louder, just maybe even brighter, just more powerful strikes uh that occur. So, definitely seeing kind of how strong and capable uh this storm is as it continues to cross that county line. So, we can zoom in again by New for those in New Providence, y'all are pretty much in the brunt of it right now. Probably experiencing some of that hail uh north of Chunky. Uh thankfully continues to kind of just grace by just north of y'all. That latest scan kind of showing a downtrend with those brighter returns.

[00:12:31]So, not as intense as it starts to continue kind of crossing the line.

[00:12:35]Hopefully continue seeing that trend as it gets closer and closer and kind of further into Lauderdale. Uh but we can go back towards our threats again. Hail will continue to be the biggest threat.

[00:12:46]Thankfully, we're kind of seeing those lighter shades of purple start to return as it crosses that county line. So, a little bit more intense back kind of in between New Providence, Center Ridge, and Blount Store. Um, not quite seeing those darker shades of purple as it continues moving on into Lauderdale. Uh, so that is definitely a good sign. Um, with that cell continuing to move on out, hopefully we can start to see that start to kind of downtrend some more.

[00:13:11]Um, but that hail track you can see very prominent out there between those cities I just mentioned and pretty much just east of Bloun Store. So, uh, this cell very capable of dropping some hail.

[00:13:21]Those were the threats that we kept emphasizing a lot yesterday, all throughout the morning today, um, and into the afternoon hours as well that we're not expecting pretty much any tornatic activity to occur. U, but wind and hail continue to be the big threats.

[00:13:34]Of course, that can still be significant with those power outages as well. So, thankfully, we haven't really had too many outages. Before we went live, I did want to check some outages that were occurring down here. I know we had a few out there in Newton County. Um have not quite had many reported yet in Lauderdale, but of course that's just due to that cell not quite making it fully in uh Yaw County uh all the way yet. But for those out there in Meridian, y'all are definitely starting to hear some of those rumbles of thunder, starting to get that heavier rainfall as it continues moving on out.

[00:14:04]Uh but we're seeing that severe thunderstorm warning continuing to pretty much uh it's still ongoing for our max South region down there. But take a look at uh all of Mississippi live weather. I'll continue to zoom out.

[00:14:16]That way you can kind of see everything that's occurring. Let's see if I can click X on that. Uh most intense storm continues to be further on south leaving Newton County heading towards Lauderdale. We're still seeing some lingering showers and moisture around the Philadelphia region. We can see those hail reports earlier. That's what I was talking about with those power outages earlier for Itala, Montgomery, some of Chalkaw into I said Montgomery um counties, but those were some hail that reports that were submitted. Still seeing some of those showers out there in the Cleveland area and then and kind of into the Delta region and some stronger kind of um kind of just heavier showers uh just crossing the state line, what looks to be into Benton County as well. But wanted to come back and just wanted to give youall a good quick visual on everything occurring within our viewing area. Um, but like I keep mentioning that severe thunderstorm warning continues to be our biggest priority and our strongest storm at this moment. So, let's take a look. Let me take off these lightning strikes. There we go. Because I mean, it's a lot. We kind of know it's a very energetic storm. U, but that way we can kind of get a good visual on what this storm looks like right now. Still doesn't look as impressive. Yeah, there we go. So, that's what it looked like at 7:18.

[00:15:26]And uh another thing to point out, that's the location where it was 7:18.

[00:15:31]Let's see if I can keep my finger. We'll put the leading edge right around there.

[00:15:36]And then currently, I mean, you're still getting that heavy rainfall, but it continues to move on out. So, definitely seeing um a downtrend in the storm as it kind of leaves our viewing area, heading further and further into Lauderdale, starting to affect those out there in Meridian. I know that's a a more populated city here in Mississippi. Um you guys are starting to get those rumbles of thunder, some lightning flashes kind of occurring, especially as that sun pretty much continues to set and it's practically dark out there with how um thick and tall those uh clouds are above you guys. So it's almost completely out of Newton County. I'm going to continue going until they kind of shave off that severe thunderstorm warning for you guys until they make it kind of more exclusively all into Lauderdale. Uh, I wouldn't be surprised to see that kind of occur pretty soon just due to not really quite seeing that same level of intensity that already moved through y'all county. But for those out there in Hickory, Blount Store, Good Hope, Center Ridge, y'all are good. It continues to move on out of Newton County, further and further into Lauderdale. For those in Chunky, y'all are almost out of it as well. Um, but yeah, definitely a hail producing cell that continued to move on through the area. Thankfully, still not talking about anything tornatic with this. This is still just hail related, wind related, and that continues to be the story as it thankfully kind of continues moving on out of our area. So, I'll bring you back towards our threats again as we continue looking at it leaving uh Newton County. Hail continues to be uh the main story. You can also notice that other blip I was talking about starting to kind of pop up over Meridian and intensify just a little bit more. Could start to see some of that hail make its way to you guys out there, but thankfully not seeing the darker returns that we saw earlier. So, a lot more intense uh just north of Chunky and the last little bit of Newton County. But as it starts crossing that county line, still kind of seeing those um brighter uh pinks and purples start to show up, just kind of showing that less confidence. Uh definitely a good sign as that cell kind of continues moving on out of Newton County. So, I'd say it's it's definitely on the downward trend, Matt. Uh definitely not as intense as when we started. Hoping to see that kind of continue as it leaves our viewing area.

[00:17:39]>> Absolutely. for Max South customers down there in particular. You can see I chang it over the radar site there in uh Jackson. It's just right along the county line there where it's a little heavier just north of I20. Maybe 2 in hail, but again that's you know some questions there. I'm going uh do some tracking on it for a moment here and then I'll hand it back over to you Caleb here in a second. I'll have you check out some power outages stuff like that real quick. Um so again current time is now 7:28. I'm chief meteorologist Matt Lawon alongside our meteorologist Caleb Edeloo tracking a severe thunderstorm down here entering Lauderdale County exiting Newton County. It's prompted a severe thunderstorm warning uh for locations down there in uh of course Newton County until 8:15. You can see there uh they'll be you'll be canceled out of this before that time period. And again, this probably staying a little south on its track there of the Meridian area uh as it continues toward the southeast. We'll check our true shield hail threat which allows us to kind of look just you know how large that hail is the probability of it seeing any time you see kind of the the black sort of purple sort of returns on this that's where we would say it is probable that we're dealing with damaging hail in particular that's what kind of focus on with this is the damaging hail potential. So that purple zone there the case and so we do have some of that up here just south of I20 showing up as well. Let's look threedimensionally on this storm. And again, does have a pretty good inflow area on it.

[00:19:03]Sometimes, you know, we would look at one of these hook echoes and go, "Well, hold on. Could that be, you know, something more than just uh more than just uh um hail?" In some cases, yes. But if this storm were going that way, that might be the case. But it's not. It's going this direction. And so, that's one of the things that again uh makes us less concerned on that on that. More concern still on hail. I do think it probably is still holding up a decent amount of hail up there. If we kind of cut into the heaviest portion of it. Yep, it's still holding up. I'd say some severe hail, some strong and could be up in excess of inch and a half size hail still on this here. Most of that has entered Newton County, uh, and is pretty much right over top of I20 where we show that there. So, um, for our folks over here in, uh, excuse me, it entered Lauderdale County. for our friends over in Newton County watching us on Max South Cable. This is largely exited to Newton County and this is staying a little south of Meridian there along I 20 and it's going to pass there uh and crossing what that'd be uh US 45 and I 59 there here fairly soon. Let's see time to uh those two different roadways. Let me adjust our speed here. I'm going to say storm speed. We're going to say 25 miles per hour. So kind of based on that, we'd say time we're less than probably 10 minutes from crossing 59, less than about a half hour there from crossing uh US 45 uh where we'd be on this storm. Uh so so still a little time, but if you know some folks crossing those roadways, especially 59 there on the uh southwest side of Meridian, highly likely we're going to have some big hail with this for some spots there. So, just just kind of a heads up, that little blob that you see on there is definitely um a sign that that is uh producing some big hail.

[00:20:57]So, we give you a storm track on that and then we're going to wrap things up.

[00:20:59]We don't officially cover uh Newton County as part of Mississippi Live weather here. Not at this, excuse me, we don't officially cover Lauderdale County as part of Mississippi Live at this stage. It's not to say we won't at some point in the future. Um but we'll get a storm track on this and we'll kind of uh send everybody back the programming here for a moment. But again tracking that again the Graham community we're looking back toward uh 20 we'll say about 23 25 miles per hour there. So Graham at 7:32 obviously now that basically the time 7:45 Sterling Arund Arunde there at 7:47 Seavoy at 7:49 Sable at 808 Dvo Dvau at uh 809 Middleton at 8:21 and energy by about 8:28. Uh speaking energy I'm going to check in with Caleb on some of the power outage situation there. Uh and Caleb kind of looking at that. Um it does look like you have a not really many out of this storm, at least not yet.

[00:21:59]>> Yeah. No. Uh that's continues to be the story. We still see the same number of outages earlier uh from the counties we were talking about with Itala, Chalkaw, um even into Montgomery. But for uh Newton, that's county that the storm continues to move on through. We can see a few being issued out there just north of Decatur. Kind of 132 customers out there affected. uh around eight just off of the highway out there. So, still seeing some of those, this is Highway 15 um just uh west of it that you can see those eight customers affected and further out west uh a kind of a big group of 132 uh in between Decar and Union. So, that continues to be a good number of outages starting to be reported for those out there in the Newton County. And then we were also talking about that storm kind of making its way closer towards DOB earlier before we wrapped up um the broadcast.

[00:22:49]And my mouse is being a little bit slow and freezing. Won't let me move it, but we can kind of start to see. There we go. Um, some of those outages be reported as that storm kind of made its way closer and closer towards you guys into Cobb. So, uh, still thankful to see not an alarming amount of outages being reported, but we're still kind of seeing that uptick just a little bit as those stronger cells move on out of our area.

[00:23:11]>> Okay, I appreciate that. That's our meteorologist Caleb Edelute there uh, in our Tupelo studios tracking the latest on this. Appreciate that. We bring it back in here. I'm chief meteorologist Matt Law on. You're looking at Mama Justice Doppler radar down here in Lauderdale County. Again, we're going to wrap up this coverage, but right there in the Graham community, uh probably some hail up in excess of an inch and a half in size falling right now. Could be up to golf ball size hail. We still show a decent amount of hail. That's what this represents as we look 3D here is all that hail up in the thunderstorm that'll try to come on down there as it hits I that'd be I 59 there. Uh so, not far from there at this point in time. So if you know somebody might be through Meridian near Meridian coming up from Hattisburg or uh heading um either direction, there's probably going to be some hail that could be up around inch inch and a half in size possibly out of that thunderstorm unfortunately. So hopefully hopefully that's not going to be a big issue there. I'm going to see if we can zip past this up north up near Bluff Springs. That went a little closer than I'd hoped, but um showing a little bit of hail on this storm as well. Kind of held up within the thunderstorm. uh looking at this uh near the Moscow community tracking that one. We'll give it storm track on that. We're gonna go kind of wrap things up. But if you do have uh storm reports you'd like to share with us, easiest way to do that is probably using the Mississippi Live weather app free and available for all of those various devices. Download our apps, Roku, Apple TV, and Fire Stick. Um again, up here in Decal, we see he mentioned a moment ago some power outages um with some of the storms.

[00:24:40]Mount Nebo, this one here, a little bit of hail with that at least, maybe up to an inch size hail. Not impossible.

[00:24:46]Kipling, Colum, Keer Springs there, Enderman, Enundale, I should say, and Tamola all in the path of that one as it moves toward the south and east. And just to kind of wrap things up, looking over uh kind of the region as a whole, can bring it back to our uh northern part of the region. A few thunderstorms out there that we are watching. These again continue farther north below severe limits up here near the Tennessee state line. We don't show any of that hail. If I go 3D on it, none of that showing up there loft. So no real issues, just some heavy rainfall, just some lightning out of those thunderstorms. So that will be pretty consistent into the evening. Though if you look at the number of strikes next to my head, 51 versus what we have down here south, closer to say 500 in this area. That tells you uh on those two thunderstorms south, they're certainly a lot stronger and a lot heavier. Our next live broadcast, unless we have more warnings, our area will be coming up tonight at uh 900 PM. Our meteorologist, Caleb Edel, will be Oops. Hold on. Let's pull that back up. There we are. Um he will be tracking the very latest uh related to any additional thunderstorms tonight and there will be some continuing overnight, but I think maybe more importantly a drier and uh less impactful weather going into this work week. There are a couple rain chances he'll be looking at here in the room weather center and he'll have the updates coming up tonight at 900 p.m. In the meantime, thank you so much for supporting us here on Mississippi Live.

[00:26:12]Uh we will see you soon.

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