On Tuesday evening through Wednesday morning tornadoes formed along a squall line in advance of a cold front that moved through the Southeast. Over three dozen tornadoes were reported with sightings occurring in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama. Tornadoes caused the deaths of a least five people in northern Alabama. Storms also took the the lives of two people in Tennessee. This Rainfall may provide some relief to drought ridden eastern Tennessee where destructive wildfires have been occurring. Some storms were accompanied with hail, strong winds and intense showers. Golf ball sized hail was reported in a storm that passed through Louisiana Tuesday evening.

The GPM core observatory satellite (GPM) viewed a western portion of this line of violent weather when it flew over on Tuesday at 10:16 PM CST (November 30, 2016 0416 UTC). GPM found that rain was falling at a rate of over 5.7 inches (144.8 mm) per hour in heavy downpours over southwestern Louisiana. The areas covered by GPM's Microwave Imager (GMI) and Dual-Frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) instruments are shown in lighter shades. The inner narrow swath shows the portion scanned by GPM's DPR. Red symbols show the approximate locations where tornadoes were reported on Tuesday Evening through Wednesday morning.

GPM's Dual-Frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) data was used to produce a 3-D view of the precipitation within storms that were moving over Louisiana. Storm tops were measured by GPM's radar (Ka and Ku band) reaching heights above 8 miles (13 km).