Alabama 811 | Know What's Below.

Cool Start but a Warm Afternoon

| April 24, 2016 @ 7:48 am

Just a reminder that I am providing weather support to the operations at the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama at Barber Motorsports Park, so there will not be a video produced today. Here is a discussion of the weather ahead.

Sunshine will allow temperatures to rise into the lower and middle 80s across Central Alabama today. Dew points are also down a tad, so the relative humidity will be lower than usual with readings around 40 percent this afternoon. If you do have plans to see any of the races at Barber Motorsports Park, be sure to pack the sunscreen.

At the beach, look for plenty of sunshine and very nice weather today and for much of the week ahead. Afternoon highs are in the 70s along the immediate coast, with lower 80s just inland. See the complete Gulf Coast 7 Day Planner here.

A strong upper low will come out of the Rockies today and Monday producing a round of severe weather in the Central Plains States. SPC has outlooked a enhanced risk for storms for Northeast Kansas and Southeast Nebraska with an area marks as slight risk from North Central Oklahoma to western Iowa. A surface low will track eastward from western South Dakota to the Mid-Atlantic states by Tuesday. Both the upper low and the surface low will weaken as they move eastward Monday and Tuesday.

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Behind that first system, another upper trough will dig into the southern Rockies by Tuesday and begin to eject eastward. This will produce another round of severe weather in a band from North Central Texas northward into northern Nebraska (Day 3) and across a sizable area of the Middle Mississippi River Valley on Day 4 (Wednesday).

While all of the action is going on well to our west and northwest, a large ridge will remain in place across the Southeast US keeping us warm through midweek with highs in the 80s. These values will be about 5 to 7 degrees higher than we usually experience this time of year. Isolated showers will be possible to the east and south of Central Alabama as the air mass becomes warm and more moist.

Thursday a front is expected to drag into the Southeast US, so right now it appears our best shot for some rain will come in the Thursday-Friday time frame. The front is forecast to weaken and wash out, but with that boundary lingering around we could see some isolated showers into the weekend. But all indications are that we’ll continue to see warm weather with lows in the 60s and highs in the 80s, mainly middle 80s.

Looking out into voodoo country, yet another trough comes out of the Rockies on Monday, May 2, but this one promises to come out much further south as the ridge over the Southeast US breaks down. It’s much too early to state specifics, but this could bring a round of severe storms to the Southeast US in the May 2nd to 4th time frame. That trough is forecast by the GFS to be pretty deep, so we could see a round of pretty chilly temperatures in the May 5th to 6th time frame. And the GFS keeps a chillier look to the pattern through May 10th with a deep trough over the eastern US and a large ridge over the Rockies, the exact opposite of what we are seeing right now.

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James Spann will be back with the next edition of the Weather Xtreme Video first thing on Monday morning. Enjoy this great spring weather. Godspeed.

-Brian-

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Category: Alabama's Weather

About the Author ()

Brian Peters is one of the television meteorologists at ABC3340 in Birmingham and a retired NWS Warning Coordination Meteorologist. He handles the weekend Weather Xtreme Videos and forecast discussion and is the Webmaster for the popular WeatherBrains podcast.

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