Storms Forming Over Jefferson County

Bill Murray | 11:34 am August 2, 2012

Showers are forming over Jefferson County now, west of Birmingham. Lightning has actually commenced near Whitson in a developing storm over far northeastern Tuscaloosa County. This will push into southwestern Jefferson County.

The left panel shows base reflectivity, or precipitation that is probably reaching the ground. The right panel shows composite reflectivity, which combines the radar returns for several levels of the atmosphere, and shows the location of building storms.

Showers and storms will build east southeastward across the Birmingham area. If your windows are rolled down, might want to keep an eye on the radar just in case one of the showers gets to you.

These showers and storms appear to be benefiting from high low level lapse rates (temperature decreasing quickly with altitude), which makes it easy for updrafts to build rapidly. There was a clue in the sky this morning around Birmingham that this might be the case. There are large decks of altocumulus clouds that spread across the sky. They indicate elevated instability.

Storms started forming about an hour ago over Tuscaloosa County and now are now mainly south of Tuscaloosa from north of Moundville to Woodstock in northern Bibb County.

This activity will push east southeast across Bibb and northern Hale Counties, then into southern Shelby and Chilton Counties.

To the south, heavy storms cover parts of Greene, Sumter, Choctaw and Marengo Counties. These storms will continue building southeastward into some extreme instability, so strong to severe storms are likely southeast of I-65 over South Alabama this afternoon. The SPC has added Southeast Alabama into a slight risk for today. I am surprised they didn’t add Southwest Alabama as well.

And watch out to the northwest. They SPC guys have added areas northwest of Alabama as a slight risk area. This activity may work into Alabama early Friday and could give parts of the area a stormy morning.