A powerful storm system that's produced viloent, killer tornadoes over the deep south Wednesday will cross the area Thursday. Thankfully, the system will be much weaker by then so we are not expecting widespread severe weather like we've seen to our west for days.
This atmospheric set up Thursday doesn't come close to resembling the one over Alabama and Mississippi or the one from April 16th when we had 7 tornadoes touch down in our viewing area. While a tornado is not out of the question, the primary threat will be from thunderstorm straight-line winds that could gust over 60 mph. Large hail is also a possibility with some of the storms.
A few showers and storms may be moving in as early as daybreak across the Pee Dee and it's not out of the question one of these could approach severe limits. As the morning goes along and we get more heating, we'll see more showers and storms fire. Here's when to expect the best chance of strong to possibly severe storms
11am - 1pm Laurinburg, Cheraw, Bennettsville, Hartsville, Darlington and Sumter
1pm - 3pm Florence, Dillon, Marion, Mullins, Lumberton Johnsonville, Lake City amd Kingstree
3pm - 5pm Loris, Conway, Socastee, Carolina Forest, NMB, Myrtle Beach, Surfside, Murrells Inlet, Pawleys Island and Georgetown
There are 4 ways you can get severe weather alerts when you are away from your TV:
1. At Carolinalive.com sign up for Alert 15 to get warnings sent via text message to your mobile phone.
2. At Carolinalive.con sign up for Weathercall and get a phone call from me when a warning is issued.
3. On Facebook, search for "Ed Piotrowski WPDE" or "WPDE NewsChannel 15" then look on the left hand side of either page, click the weather alert for your county, "like" it and you'll get warnings posted directly on YOUR Facebook page. Warning will also post on Ed's and WPDE's pages.
4. On Twitter, seach for @EdPiotrowski. Warnings are posted their immediately as well.
Your First Alert Weather Team will keep you updated throughout the day.
