Sunshine for Several Days

Saturday turned out to be a fairly nice day, though the strong east wind was a little brisk especially during the morning. But overnight the upper level weakness continued to dissipate, and most of Alabama is waking up to clear skies this morning. With plenty of sunshine look for the afternoon highs to reach well into the 70s with most places in the middle 70s.

Beach weather looks good, too, with plenty of sunshine ahead for those at the beach. Through midweek there will be dry weather with more sun than clouds, so be sure to use the sunscreen. Afternoon highs will be in the 70s. This latest reading at Perdido Pass at Orange Beach showed the water temperature at 68 degrees. See the complete Gulf Coast 7 Day Planner here.

There is not much to say about the weather in Central Alabama from Monday through Wednesday. We will see lots of sunshine with a gradual warming trend as highs climb to the lower 80s by Wednesday. Morning lows will be cool but not too chilly with readings around 50 Monday and Tuesday and into the upper 50s Wednesday.

Yesterday the GFS seemed to be struggling with exactly what to do with the weather for the end of the week. Well the latest GFS run has a pretty big change that will mean drier weather for next weekend. The upper low over the Southwest US eventually lifts out to the north and then phases with the large trough over northern Canada to move eastward across the Middle Mississippi River Valley. Below this upper trough, a surface low will develop in the vicinity of Paducah, KY, and move northeast into New England by Friday. This drags a cold front across Alabama late Thursday and early Friday. This represents a big change in the overall pattern from yesterday which brought the front into the area and stalled it.

This solution is also very close to the solution presented by the European model, so confidence is fairly high with both global models in close agreement. This solution puts our best rain chances from late Thursday afternoon into the first half of Friday. The front pushes well off the Southeast US coast on Saturday, so Saturday and Sunday should be very nice days with temperatures close to expected seasonal values with lows in the 50s and highs in the 70s.

The Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama will be at Barber Motorsports Park next weekend, April 22-24, and the latest model projections suggest some great weather for racing. You can get ticket information here.

Looking further afield, both the GFS and ECMWF are suggesting a large upper ridge over the eastern US for the first half of week 2. The ridge holds into the second half of the week, but a fairly strong short wave trough around April 29th promises some active weather late that week.

I had a great time at the Mutt Strut on Saturday morning with Meaghan Thomas. She ran the race while I held down the meet-and-greet tasks at the ABC 3340 booth. Nice to have a dry event for the Mutt Strut and the steady to brisk east wind kept everyone cool. Our promotions director, Karen Swann, was in the race, too, but she did a combination of walk/run. Both ladies mentioned that the race course was a tough because of the numerous hills.

James Spann will be back in the saddle come Monday morning with the next edition of the Weather Xtreme Video. You can always check in with the blog for the latest notes on the weather. Enjoy the sunshine and Godspeed.

-Brian-

Tags: ANC

Category: Alabama's Weather