By Kristina Pydynowski, Senior Meteorologist
December 23,2012; 2:50PM,EST
An outbreak of severe weather, including tornadoes, threatens to ruin Christmas Day for families and communities across the Gulf Coast states.
The area at greatest risk for damaging thunderstorms and tornadoes on Christmas Day stretches from southeastern Texas to the Florida Panhandle and southwestern Georgia.
That zone is home to College Station and Houston, Texas, Lafayette, Baton Rouge and New Orleans, La., Jackson and Gulfport, Miss., Montgomery and Mobile, Ala., Pensacola, Fla., and Albany, Ga.
AccuWeather.com meteorologists are especially concerned for the potential for loss of life with this outbreak since it will actually commence during the predawn hours of Christmas across southeastern Texas.
Tornadoes touching down during the nighttime hours is always a dangerous situation as people may sleep through vital warnings or have difficulty seeing an approaching twister.
In addition to tornadoes causing destruction, severe thunderstorms capable of unleashing damaging winds and flooding rain are a serious concern.
The violent thunderstorms should organize into a solid line by Tuesday night and march across Alabama, northern Florida and Georgia with damaging winds.
The severe weather danger should reach the Southeast coast, from eastern North Carolina to northeastern Florida, on Wednesday.
Wilmington, N.C., Charleston, S.C., Savannah, Ga., and Jacksonville, Fla., are among the communities at risk this day.
The same storm set to trigger the impending severe weather outbreak will also spread a swath of significant snow from the southern Plains to the eastern Great Lakes and Northeast from Christmas Day to Thursday.
Ahead of this storm, another system will trigger showers and thunderstorms across the South on Monday. Thunderstorms causing damage this day would be extremely isolated occurrences, but the danger of lightning striking anyone spending Christmas Eve outdoors will still exist.
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