The first watch of the current severe weather event has been issued for parts of Alabama, but does not yet include the metro Birmingham area.

The National Weather Service has issued a tornado watch until 9 p.m. for most of the northwest counties of the state, as well as parts of Mississippi and Tennessee. The watch area includes Walker and Cullman counties, but not Jefferson or Blount.

The severe weather setup concerns forecasters enough that they have designated the watch as a “particularly dangerous situation” (PDS), a category used unly for the strongest of severe weather events. The last time a PDS watch was issued for Alabama was April 27, 2011, when the state was ravaged by a large tornado outbreak that heavily damaged Fultondale and many other communities.

The current guidance from the National Weather Service put the leading edge of the storm system into metro Birmingham between 7 and 9 p.m. A tornado watch will likely be issued well in advance of that time frame.

The NWS Storm Prediction Center has also upgraded the forecast for Tuesday to include a moderate risk of severe weather for most of central Alabama. Much of Tuesday’s weather, and its severity, will depend on how quickly today’s round of storms moves out of the area. If we receive a good deal of sunshine Tuesday morning, that will warm up and destabilize the atmosphere, giving fuel for more severe storms to spawn.

Residents are advised to keep a close watch on all sources of weather information. We’ll have frequent updates here at njeffersonnews.com, our Facebook page and our Twitter feed. On twitter, the hashtag #alwx is used to categorize storm information for Alabama.