Alabama 811 | Know What's Below.

Tough Temperature Forecast

| April 6, 2014 @ 12:45 pm

There’s lots of interest in the severe weather potential, but the temperature forecast for today is also a tough one. Clouds are holding tough across all of Alabama and even the northwest counties have become overcast after a sunny morning.

Temperatures at 12:30 pm were running in the 50s across Central Alabama, in fact all the way down to the Gulf Coast readings were at 60 degrees or below. Without much sun today, we are not likely to climb very much at all. The temperature profile on the morning sounding at the Shelby County Airport was nearly isothermal all the way up to 850 millibars or about 5,000 feet. So there is no significant warming likely to occur with any warmer air aloft mixing down to the ground.

So this is one of those days in which the temperature will probably rise very slowly throughout the day with the actual high for the day coming later tonight and not around mid-afternoon as we typically see. As the surface low develops and moves northeastward, we are likely to get into the warm sector where the greatest risk of severe weather is likely to occur. All modes of severe weather will be possible with the greatest threat coming from damaging wind. There still is a big concern for the possibility of a few tornadoes to occur early Monday.

Timing is a little uncertain. The latest GFS model run takes the surface low from Southwest Louisiana at 03Z to near Tupelo by 09Z and to near Paducah by 15Z. This track would definitely bring Central Alabama into the warm sector with temperatures Monday morning before noon quite possibly rising into the lower 70s along with substantial increase in low level moisture with dew points into the lower 60s. With abundant shear expected, rotating storms will be possible especially from about 3 am through noon.

The front should be making its way through Central Alabama from west to east during the early afternoon hours from about 1 pm to 3 pm bringing an end to the severe weather threat.

-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.

Comments are closed.