Archive for August 12th, 2012
Severe Weather Tomorrow Night?
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High pressure is firmly in control of our weather on this August Sunday afternoon, with high pressure centered over Central Tennessee, ridging down into Alabama. Moisture is nearly non-existent, at least by summer stands in North and Central Alabama.
Preciptable water values are running between 0.50” and 0.75” across the area. The 0.63” reading at Birmingham this morning is well over two standard deviations lower than normal and in record territory for this time of year!
Skies are mostly clear with just a few high clouds up in the Huntsville area at mid-afternoon. This cloudiness was drifting southeast in the upper flow and will give the sky a little character over northeastern sections of the state through the rest of the afternoon. The mercury is heading toward the upper 80s. Tonight, temperatures will fall back into the lower 60s in many areas, with a few 50s sprinkled in. So, get ready for another confortable night.
STORMS RETURN MONDAY: We will actually be monitoring for a severe weather situation on Monday afternoon and night across North and Central Alabama, so heads up. On the weather maps tomorrow morning, we expect to find a decent surface low north of St. Louis with a cold front trailing back to near Wichita Falls. This front will be near Little Rock by sunset Monday evening. Showers and storms will be ongoing ahead of the front.
The SPC has already outlooked areas from Louisville to Memphis to the Mississippi Delta in a slight risk for tomorrow afternoon and evening. The storms will work into Alabama overnight. Moisture levels will rebound over Central Alabama and there will be a bit of a southwesterly breeze tomorrow. Highs will warm back into the lower 90s again. Some of the wind shear parameters will be there for severe weather Monday night, so we will be monitoring. There is not much certainty in this forecast. The storms could hold off until Tuesday morning, which might minimize the severe weather chances. Stay tuned.
HUMP DAY: The front probably will stall out over North Central Alabama on Tuesday afternoon and will head back north as a warm front on Wednesday. High pressure should give us decent weather for Wednesday, with very low rain chances and seasonally hot temperatures.
THURSDAY AND BEYOND: We find ourselves back in a tropical soup on Thursday with lots of humidity and plenty of heat. Scattered storms will be the norm de rigeur on Thursday with that fuel lying around. Another front will start to approach the area Thursday night. That front will be hanging around through Friday and will wash out over the weekend. We will be watching for the possibility of severe weather Thursday into Friday.
Hint of Fall in the Air
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Wow, there is really a hint of Fall in the air this morning with temperatures across North and Central Alabama in the upper 50s and lower 60s. These morning lows were last seen in Central Alabama back in the very early days of June. Quite refreshing!!
With plenty of sunshine we should warm up to the upper 80s for highs today. The front was located along the Gulf coast while aloft we have an unusually deep trough over the eastern half of the country for this time of year. Another strong short wave will be digging into the trough on Monday bringing another cold front down our way with shower chances increasing late Monday and into early Tuesday. The northwesterly flow will need to be watched for any kind of thunderstorm cluster that might form. SPC has outlooked an area to across northern Mississippi and West Tennessee that touches Northwest Alabama with the primary threat for damaging wind and hail.
That impulse moves by quickly while still leaving the trough over the eastern half of the country. So we dry out for Wednesday and Thursday and warm up with highs 90 to 92. The process gets repeated on Friday with another strong wave moving into the trough and bringing still another cold front into the Southeast US. This brings the threat of showers back into the forecast for Friday and Saturday, but it looks like Sunday should dry out nicely again much like yesterday with a large high centered to our north and drier air coming into the region.
Tropics are still somewhat active but the environment has become somewhat hostile for any development for the next couple of days. Two areas being watched include the remnants of TD 7 in the Windward Islands and small disturbance way out in the southern Atlantic. Neither is likely to develop any time soon.
Long range model projections keep the trough over the eastern US so it looks like August will be ending without any sign of extreme heat as we stay in the pattern we’ve seen much of the first part of this month.
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Thanks for tuning into the Weather Xtreme Video. James Spann will be back with the next edition first thing Monday morning. I’m heading out on a grand adventure with a trip to Alaska, so I’ll be missing the next couple of weekends. Enjoy the hint of Fall and Godspeed.
-Brian-
