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Be sure and scroll down and read Tim Coleman’s very interesting post on gravity waves observed yesterday in Iowa. Very good stuff.

Despite the very moist air in place across Alabama, there isn’t much to see on radar this afternoon, and that is no real surprise to our readers. We continue to believe that any showers tonight and tomorrow will be widely separated, and a number of communities will remain dry and dusty. The high tomorrow afternoon should be in the low to mid 80s, about five degrees above normal for this time of the year, and the chance of any one spot getting wet tomorrow is only about one in four.

THE WEEKEND AHEAD: No real change in our thinking for the weekend; mostly dry with only a very small risk of any one spot seeing a shower on Saturday and Sunday. The weekend will feel more like summer with afternoon highs in the mid to upper 80s along with high humidity values.

WEATHER FOR SPECTATOR SPORTS: For high school football across Central Alabama Friday evening, warm and humid and a slight chance of a shower with temperatures in the 70s through the entire game. On Saturday, Vanderbilt will be at Auburn, Houston at Alabama and UAB will travel to Starkville to play Mississippi State. High temperatures will be well into the 80s at all three games. There is only a small chance of a shower, although a slightly better chance in Starkville. This is race weekend at Talladega. For the Saturday Mountain Dew 250, temperatures at the track will range between 84 and 87 with only a small risk of a shower. On Sunday for the UAW-Ford 500, few if any showers expected with temperatures at the track peaking around 88.

NEXT WEEK: The week begins with more warm and mostly dry weather on Monday and Tuesday. The wild card next week with be a tropical system moving through the southern Gulf of Mexico. By Monday, the GFDL has a 989 millibar tropical storm in the southern Gulf, well to the south of New Orleans, but the Canadian model has a stronger system approaching New Orleans. The GFS, on the other hand, keeps a broad low moving westward, with an ultimate destination on the Mexican coast, well south of Brownsville, Texas, by the end of the week. You know, you don’t forecast rain in the middle of a drought, so gut feeling here says the GFS might be the best solution, but lets get the system better organized and we will get a much better idea of a potential track tomorrow and over the weekend.

Also, a stout mid-latitude system will push a cold front through here late Wednesday or Wednesday night, but there is very little rain associated with the front on the 12Z GFS run. Cooler and drier air moves in here by Thursday and Friday.

LONG RANGE: The 12Z GFS does show a cooler pattern for Alabama during the October 16-20 time frame with a general upper trough over the eastern half of the continent.

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I sure enjoyed seeing over 700 kids this morning at Boutwell Auditorium at the annual Community Awareness Day in downtown Birmingham… be looking for them on the KIDCAM on ABC 33/40 News at 5:00 today. I am about to hit the road again, this time I am going to Tuscaloosa for live weather at 5 and 6:00 at the Bryant Conference Center for the “Nite On The Green” event, which is to raise money for breast cancer research. I will stick around after our 6:00 news and help with the auction tonight. Ashley Brand will be covering the 10:00 news for me in the studio tonight.

The next Weather Xtreme video will be posted by 7:00 a.m. tomorrow!