Is This the Fourth of July?

If you didn’t know better, you would think it was late September rather that the Fourth of July across Central Alabama.

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First, everyone started off with some comfortable readings this morning. It was 61F at the Birmingham Airport, some ten degrees below the average low for the date of 71F.

Skies have been mostly sunny, with just a few high clouds and contrails across the middle of the state and over the Tennessee Valley, and a few puny puffy cumulus clouds over western sections.

The closest showers to Central Alabama were in the Louisiana coastal waters and over the Florida Peninsula, south of a frontal system that is lying over the northern Gulf of Mexico into southern Georgia.

It was 83F at 3 p.m. at the Birmingham Airport. It that ends up being the high for the day, it would make it the 10th coolest 4th of July on record in the Magic City. 84F would make it the 12th. The interesting thing about the top ten coolest Independence Days in Birmingham is that it rained on nine of them.

If you remember, last year was the 2nd coldest 4th of July in Birmingham history with a high of 77F. It had been cloudy and rainy all day with flash flood watches.

FIREWORKS FORECAST
Usually at this time on the Fourth, we are fretting whether fireworks shows will go on. Not this year. The show will go on and be beautiful in all Alabama cities tonight.

CHECK ON ARTHUR

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Arthur is racing off to the northrast this afternoon. It will brush by Cape Cod and Nantucket this evening with some tropical storm force winds. It will reach Nova Scotia tomorrow morning and Newfoundland Sunday. It will be tropical storm when that happens.

Damage in North Carolina is minimal, thankfully. Highway 12, the road over the Outer Banks was covered with sand, but it projected to reopen tomorrow.

Arthur will go in the books at the earliest hurricane in history to make landfall in North Carolina.

Category: Alabama's Weather, Tropical