A Midnight Look at the Alabama Weather Situation

Here is a look at the Alabama Weather Situation at Midnight.

Click image to enlarge.

Storms that developed today over Arkansas and western Tennessee, well ahead of a long cold front, have drifted southward this evening into Central Alabama, northern Mississippi and Northwestern Alabama.

As they encountered more stable air over the Tennessee Valley over the past couple of hours, they weakened a bit. But they seem to be making a bit of a comeback now in northwestern Alabama, as well as over in Northeast Mississippi. They seem to be taking advantage of some favorable ventilation aloft to hold together.

Lots of lightning right now in places like Florence, Russellville and Moulton. The NWS Huntsville estimated totals may have approached 5-6 inches in parts of eastern Lauderdale County today. 1.53 inches of rain fell in one hour between 10 – 11 p.m. tonight at the Muscle Shoals NWS Alabama Regional Airport. 0.46 inches of that fell in 13 minutes. Here is a radar estimate from the Hytop radar in North Alabama.

Click image to enlarge.

FLash flooding was reported back in Hardemann and McNairy Counties just to the northwest of the Quad Cities. People were reported trapped in homes in some areas.

No watches or warnings at this hour, and really none are expected overnight. But you can never rule out the threat of a strong storm or two, and perhaps a rogue severe thunderstorm warning through the early morning hours. But the loss of the heating of the day is in our favor and the mesoscale models like the HRRR and the RPM predict that they will continue to weaken as they move slowly southeast.

Showers and storms will be fairly numerous later today (Wednesday) as the front drifts slowly southward. Some of them could be strong to severe. It wlll be interesting to see if the Storm Prediction Center includes parts of Alabama in their standard slight risk severe weather forecast. Their day two probabilities from yesterday were set at 5% for this area, which would not translate to a slight risk if that number holds steady. So probably not, but look out for strong to isolated severe storms later today with damaging winds, flooding rains and some hail possible.

Category: Alabama's Weather, Severe Weather