Archive for August 11th, 2012

Perseid Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight

The Perseid meteor shower peaks tonight and the weather across Central Alabama will cooperate for viewing. The best time to see meteors will be between midnight and dawn. For best results, get away from city lights under a clear, dark sky. Face northeast in a lawn chair or sleeping bag and look about halfway up in the sky.

You will see the familiar “W” of Cassiopeia. Just below that will be a wishbone shaped constellation. This is Perseus. The meteors will appear to originate from the top of Perseus. Be patient and keep scanning this area. You could see as many as a dozen meteors per hour. As you get close to dawn, the spectacle will be highlighted by a thin moon, Jupiter and Venus.

NOT FALLING STARS: Did you know that the meteors are not “falling stars”? They are specks of dust and other comet debris from the Swift-Tuttle Comet. AS the Earth plows through the debris trail of the comet, the particles are thrust into the atmosphere as high speed. The gases heat to the point that they glow. Here hoping you catch some bright ones tonight!

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Storms Out – Dry Air In

The latest edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme Video is available in the player below. You can subscribe to the Weather Xtreme Video on iTunes by clicking here.

After a rather stormy Friday, an early season cold front is bringing an air mass change to Central Alabama that will remind us that Fall is just around the corner. The front was located just south of Birmingham early this morning and is expected to continue moving southward. Dryer air was lagging a tad behind the front with dew points already down to the lower 60s in the Tennessee River Valley – 59 at Muscle Shoals. The NAM MOS only drops us into the upper 50s for dew points while the GFS MOS suggests lower and mid 50s. Either way this is a change which we have not seen in a couple of months. The high today should be about 87 or 88.

Look for a another dry and pleasant day Sunday though our high climbs a bit to about 90. With the upper trough carving out a nice niche across the eastern half of the country, we will see a number of short waves move through the trough, so timing of those will be the forecast challenge. The latest model guidance suggests another front moving across Central Alabama on Tuesday with a chance for showers mainly that day. We dry out again Wednesday and Thursday with another possible front coming into the area on Friday and Saturday bringing chances for showers once again. So the overall pattern remains pretty active for us with issues of timing these impulses moving through the overall trough across the eastern US.

With the trough over the eastern half of the country, we are under a northwesterly flow once again, so we will need to watch for the development of any MCSs that might affect us.

Tropics have been active but TD 7 which is following closely on the heels of Ernesto seems to be having issues. It may be able to strengthen to tropical storm strength, but NHC forecasts suggest dissipation due to strong southwesterly shear in the eastern Caribbean. So they forecast dissipation in about 48 hours.

The long range GFS continues to maintain the upper level pattern of a trough over the eastern two thirds of the country with a ridge along the West Coast. This suggests a continuation of an active pattern for us and no sign of any extreme heat for the latter part of August.

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Thanks for tuning into the Weather Xtreme Video. I plan to post the next edition first thing Sunday morning. Enjoy this hint of Fall! Godspeed.

-Brian-

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