Alabama 811 | Know What's Below.

What A Difference!

| April 14, 2013 @ 7:28 am

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What a difference a day makes!! Yesterday was so beautiful – a nearly perfect Spring day that I hope everyone had a chance to enjoy. But for those early risers who peek at the weather, the sky has become overcast and rain is knocking on the door for Central Alabama. All of this in response to the development of a surface low pressure center along the Louisiana coast this morning. The low developing as a result of a low latitude upper trough that will move quickly into the Southwest Atlantic by Monday. Because of the overrunning, rain has developed covering the lower half of the Southeast US. Rain will be with us much of today. In fact, it looks to me like the rain will spread considerably further north than I was thinking yesterday.

Rainfall amounts will be the heaviest along the Gulf Coast with amounts of 2 to 3 inches possible. Across Central Alabama, isolated heavy rainfall will be possible with rainfall generally coming in around an inch. We’ll need to keep a close eye for flooding issues with this rain coming so quickly on the heels of the recent widespread 1 to 2 inch rains we had Thursday.

Interesting to note that the MOS guidance seems to have missed this event when it comes to temperatures. I noted yesterday that the combination of clouds, rain, and the very dry atmosphere which would contribute to evaporative cooling would result in temperatures about 10 degrees cooler than the MOS values for highs today. Well, the latest MOS guidance is still suggesting a high of 73 for Birmingham, and I have dropped my expected high into the lower 60s, still 10 degrees below MOS.

The low latitude upper trough moves into the Atlantic on Monday and should sweep the rain with it allowing us to clear out Monday with highs returning quickly into the 70s. We come under an upper ridge on Monday and Tuesday, so I think we see partly cloudy skies without any showers around. That is likely to change as we head into Wednesday and Thursday. A strong upper trough will be coming out of the Rockies on Thursday, and with a strong southerly influx of moisture and temperatures in the 80 to 84 range, isolated showers become possible on Wednesday and Thursday. The strong upper trough together with the strong surface low that will move from the Oklahoma Panhandle to the Great Lakes by Thursday will set the stage for a fairly widespread severe weather event on Day 4, Wednesday into early Thursday.

The front will come through here on Friday, probably during the first half of the day, so we will be facing a threat for severe storms. Right now, SPC still has not identified a specific area. With the major dynamics pretty far north along with some model differences, I understand their reluctance to be very specific. To me, it appears that the threat will be there primarily in the form of severe thunderstorms and a squall line. But that does not mean that we won’t see a few tornadoes – as we saw in this last event. So it is a bit far into the future to be really specific, but certainly a scenario for us to keep an eye on.

That front should be out of the state by late Friday which would bring us another great weekend with lows in the 40s and highs in the 60s.

Looking into the future, the pattern stays active but perhaps a little less active than the model suggested yesterday. But we all know the characteristics of voodoo country!!

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I’m glad to see the rainy day for today after working in the yard and garage yesterday. Need an inside day to recover from the hard work yesterday! James Spann will be back with the next edition of the Weather Xtreme Video bright and early on Monday morning. I hope you have a nice day today. Godspeed.

-Brian-

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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