Archive for June 4th, 2012
Storms To The North
Keeping an eye on storms north of Alabama… over Tennessee and Kentucky. Much of West Tennessee is under a severe thunderstorm watch until 4:00 a.m. CDT.
These storms will move into North Alabama after midnight, and much like last night the storms will be strong with lots of lightning, thunder, heavy rain, gusty winds, and possibly some small hail. The tornado threat is very minimal.
For the Birmingham/Tuscaloosa/Anniston/Gadsden areas… the main risk of storms will come after 3:00 a.m. We will be watching.
Will Storms Make It Here Overnight?
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Tracking two areas of thunderstorms tonight on regional radars.
A long lived complex is over Central Mississippi northwest of Jackson tonight. It is pushing east southeast. It could affect areas from Sumter and Greene Counties through Hale, Perry and Dallas Counties. No warnings with this complex right now, but it has a long history of severe thunderstorm warnings all along its path from Arkansas. There has been redevelopment of this system on its northeast flank. It is an impressive mesoscale convective vortex. There is a severe thunderstorm watch ahead of this system across Mississippi, but this system should continue to weaken as it moves into Alabama, so significant weather problems are not anticipated. The SPC advises they do not anticipate issuing another watch into Alabama with this system.
Secondly, scattered strong thunderstorms are over Kentucky, moving into northern Tennessee ahead of a cold front that is moving southward. These storms appear to have weakened in the past couple of hours and this is supported by RPM model output. If you carry the output into the predawn hours, we could see more storms developing over eastern Alabama in the I-20 corridor toward dawn.
So, we can’t rule out a warning or two with two two current systems on the board overnight. The SPC does have a slight risk up through 7 a.m. for areas over the northern half of the state.
Additionally, storms will redevelop along and ahead of the front as it moves into Central Alabama Tuesday. It should be in the US-82/I-20 corridor by lunchtime and storms will be forming again about them. Can’t rule out some warnings with the storms that form tomorrow afternoon, but severe weather will not be widespread.
More Storms For Alabama Tonight
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CALM FOR THE MOMENT: The batch of storms that moved through Alabama this morning are long gone, and a few area of showers and storms tried to move into Northwest Alabama earlier this afternoon, but they fell apart quickly in the air over Alabama that was stabilized by the morning convection. Looks like we will be rain-free for the rest of the afternoon.
Temperatures remain amazingly pleasant for June; Birmingham reported a cool 74 degrees at 2:00.
TONIGHT: A well defined MCV (mesoscale convective vortex) is moving southeast through Arkansas, and that promises to bring a marked increase in thunderstorm activity within the next few hours over Southeast Arkansas and North Mississippi. These storms will move into Alabama tonight… mostly after 9:00 p.m. Maybe even after midnight.
Like the storms over the past 24 hours, they could pack a punch, with the main threat coming from small hail and strong, gusty winds. SPC keeps much of North Alabama in a “slight risk” of severe weather tonight for this potential. Additional rain amounts of 1/2 inch are likely, with isolated totals to one inch.
TOMORROW: The overnight storms will end early in the day, and it remains to be seen if additional storms can fire up tomorrow afternoon with the approach of a surface cold front. We will keep a chance of scattered storms in the forecast tomorrow afternoon, but it could be a situation like today where the overnight storms make the air too stable for additional development.
WEDNESDAY-FRIDAY: These three days should be warm and dry, with daily highs in the 85 to 88 degree range. Humidity levels will be a tad lower with mostly sunny days and fair nights.
WEEKEND PEEK: The 12Z GFS does show some increase in low level moisture, but now with no dynamic forcing we will keep the weekend warm and dry; partly sunny Saturday and Sunday with afternoon highs close to 90 degrees. You might see a shower or two on radar over the weekend, but for now the chance of any one spot getting wet looks very small.
AT THE BEACH: A few scattered showers and storms are possible tomorrow, Wednesday, and Thursday along the Alabama and Northwest Florida coasts, with about 3 to 6 hours of sunshine each day. The weather looks fine for Friday and the weekend with a good supply of sunshine each day and only isolated showers. Highs stay in the 80s, and the sea water temperature this afternoon at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab is 84 degrees.
TROPICS: All is quiet and tropical storm formation is not expected this week.
WEATHER BRAINS: Don’t forget you can listen to our weekly 90 minute netcast anytime on the web, or on iTunes. This is the show all about weather featuring many familiar voices, including our meteorologists here at ABC 33/40. We will record tonight’s episode tonight at 8:30 p.m… and we will be live on a Google Hangout for Broadcast. We will post the video stream here on the blog, and of course you can always listen later via the web or iTunes as always. Dr. Harold Brooks will be our guest….He works at the National Severe Storms Laboratory. He is also a recent alum fo the show, having appeared on show #312 on 1/16. He will join us tonight from his office in Norman, Oklahoma.
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Look for the next Weather Xtreme video here by 7:00 a.m. tomorrow… and we will post updates on thunderstorms tonight as needed.
Mid-Morning Look
Rain is slowly tapering off across Alabama this morning. The morning batch of storms has helped to make the air over North Alabama relatively stable, so things should be quiet for the next couple of hours.
But, to the northwest, more storms are firing up southeast of Memphis, and those should roll into Northwest Alabama this afternoon.
These storms should enter Northwest Alabama by midday… moving southeast. We will keep an eye on them.
