Showers Down – Heat Up

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Summer weather patterns are not usually this troublesome for forecasting with daily shower chances, but we have a somewhat challenging forecast with a front approaching from the northwest which could mean some drier air for us while we watch a slowly changing area of disturbed weather off the Southeast US coast which could complicate the overall picture.

For today, the weak short wave that brought a fairly nice round of showers and thunderstorms to the Tennessee Valley area yesterday is still helping to produce a few showers over Northeast Alabama. With a slight drop in precipitable water and the slow movement of that short wave away from us, most showers that occur today are likely to be east and north of Birmingham with West Central Alabama dry. With the building of the ridge aloft, temperatures should climb into the lower 90s.

Because of the building ridge, it looks like Tuesday will be an essentially dry day even though an isolated shower driven by afternoon heating can’t be completely ruled out. The pattern becomes somewhat muddied on Wednesday and Thursday with the approach of a weak frontal boundary from the northwest. Fronts do reach our area this time of year, but they are fairly rare. While no major air mass change is expected, the frontal boundary could bring air that is much drier into the northern half of Alabama with dew points dropping from the lower 70s into the lower 60s. Adding to the complication is the tropical weather disturbance off the eastern coast of Florida. It meanders there for several days slowly gaining some strength. This complicates our picture because the front should provide additional lift to improve shower chances but the sinking motion around the tropical system could significantly reduce our rain chances. Definitely a stay tuned situation!

This is likely to mean just the potential of isolated showers by July 4th. As we get into the weekend, the tropical disturbance is likely to moved along the Carolina coast and finally northeast into the Atlantic. This suggests the return of daily showers as we watch the approach of another fairly strong short wave coming across the North Central US that could bring an uptick to showers for the Southeast US.

TROPICS: Eyes are on the area of disturbed weather off the east coast of Florida. Conditions remain favorable for gradual intensification of this area which could become a depression in the next 36 hours. Computer guidance suggests movement along but just offshore from the Southeast US coast before it moves out into the Atlantic by next weekend.

AT THE BEACH: It will be warm on the beaches. Afternoon highs are likely in the lower 90s for part of this week. It should remain dry, with only an isolated shower of storm each day. There will certainly be more sun than clouds and UV indexes are categorized as Extreme. You can expect the water temps to be in the middle 80s.

The GFS shows a strong ridge over the eastern two-thirds of the US as we get out into Week 2 and voodoo country.

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Thanks for staying tuned to the Blog. I’ll have the next Weather Xtreme Video posted on Tuesday morning. Enjoy your day and Godspeed.

-Brian-

Category: Alabama's Weather