Round 1 Ending – Round 2 Tonight

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You might call it a one, two punch, since we’re facing a double-header rain event with one rain event coming to an end this morning and the second one shaping up for late tonight. Flooding issues have become a bigger problem for us in round two due to the widespread and relatively heavy rain which occurred early this morning with some spots recording over 2 inches of rainfall. While the afternoon will be mainly dry, some scattered showers could occur.

A strong upper trough comes out of the Rockies tonight and Saturday bringing us round two in the rain event. A good deal of uncertainty exists with the forecast tonight and early Saturday morning due to several factors. Instability as shown by CAPE values will peak this evening across the Central Gulf Coast region and should be decreasing somewhat for Alabama during the early morning hours when the atmosphere is a little cooler and a bit more stable. However, the shear potential as shown by helicity will be sufficient to allow generation of some rotating storms, so while hail and damaging wind appear to be the greatest threats, we can’t completely rule out the possibility of isolated tornadoes.

The limiting factors that are tough to fully evaluate include the presence of ongoing thunderstorms along the Gulf Coast this afternoon and evening. The presence of these storms could help to rob the surface low of some of its punch. It’s also interesting to note that the GFS MOS values should dew points only reaching the middle and upper 50s. While once again sufficient, it does not appear likely that the deep moisture as seen by surface dew points in the 60s will be able to reach all the way north to the heart of Central Alabama. Experience has shown that this can change rapidly depending in part on the strength of the surface low and precisely how fast it moves toward the northeast. So the best course of action for Central Alabama is to be prepared for the potential for severe thunderstorms tonight and early Saturday.

The strong upper trough will move across the Southeast US on Saturday bringing an end to the rain as the surface low moves into the Mid-Atlantic states. The upper level flow goes into a fairly strong ridge pattern for the Southeast US from Sunday into the middle of next week keeping the mainly westerlies well to our north and providing us with good weather with highs climbing into the 70s for Monday through Wednesday.

Another strong trough coming out of the Rockies on Thursday promises to bring another rain event and some potential for severe weather as a strong surface low moves northeast across the western portion of the Ohio River Valley. While this is verging on voodoo country and we can’t be very specific on what we will see develop, it certainly has the look of a severe weather situation. But we do need to get beyond the one we’re watching for tonight.

The GFS continues to show an active pattern of weather systems into Week 2. There is even the indication of a strong storm with winter weather consequences for the Northeast US and Mid-Atlantic states around April 10th.

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I will have the next Weather Xtreme Video on Saturday morning, however, I’ll try to post some forecast notes here later today and tonight as the current weather situation unfolds. Enjoy the day, but please stay weather aware tonight and early Saturday on this developing weather situation. Godspeed.

-Brian-

Category: Alabama's Weather