The Storm Prediction Center has issued a tornado watch (yellow shaded area) for much of the state until 4 a.m. Sunday morning. A line of severe storms is expected to move through over the coming hours and overnight, with widespread damaging winds, large hail and isolated tornadoes. Some of the wind gusts could reach 75 mph, and an isolated strong tornado of EF2-plus intensity is possible.

This line of storms is blanketed with tornado warnings and was expected to reach the state line around 9 p.m. or so, the Birmingham metro and I-65 around midnight and clear into Georgia around daybreak.

There may be an enhanced corridor of more widespread damaging winds across portions of Choctaw, Marengo, Hale, Sumter, Pickens, Greene and Tuscaloosa counties, where a bow echo could develop.

We will monitor this closely, and we encourage you to treat severe thunderstorm warnings tonight like a tornado warning and move to your designated shelter. These storms, regardless of whether they are producing tornadoes, will have potential to produce widespread, and in some cases significant, straight-line wind damage similar to that of a small tornado. We also expect numerous power outages.

For more weather news and information from James Spann, Jack Rudden and other members of the James Spann team, visit AlabamaWx.