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Morning Fog; Afternoon Storms

| August 10, 2014 @ 7:12 am

No Weather Xtreme Video this morning due to intermittent Internet connectivity issues. Here’s the discussion for the weather changes coming in the week ahead.

After the widespread showers Saturday afternoon, fog developed and became dense in spots prompting the issuance of a dense fog advisory until 9 am for much of the southern two-thirds of Alabama. Fog should burn off or rise into a cloud deck by 8 to 9 am. With lots of low level moisture in place, a few showers were evident on radar, too, so I expect to see our unsettled weather pattern continue today and Monday with widespread numerous showers and thunderstorms forming by early afternoon. Temperatures will once again climb to near 90 for our highs and could then nose dive into the 70s if you encounter a shower or thunderstorm nearby.

The overall upper air pattern with a deepening trough promises to bring us another instance of a summertime front with drier and cooler air by midweek. This will keep us unsettled until about Wednesday when the drier, cooler air arrives.

The deep trough maintains a position over the eastern US into the end of the week as it weakens slightly. With the northwesterly flow aloft, the GFS suggests some embedded short waves that could produce mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) over the Central Plains that will ride the flow southeastward into the Southeast US. There is no skill to forecast that specific event this far in advance, so we’ll want to keep a wary eye on the possibility of such a development. Awareness of this potential will allow quick adjustment to the forecast should an MCS develop.

With the drier and cooler air in place, we should see morning lows dip into the upper 50s Thursday and Friday morning. These will feel great once again, but the likelihood of setting new record low temperatures is not high since the records for those dates in Birmingham stand at 54 degrees set in 2004.

Moisture levels come back up once again as we head into next weekend, so showers mainly driven by afternoon heating return to the forecast as highs climb into the 89 to 92 range.

Beach goers will encounter scattered showers and storms for the next several days, but nothing to ruin the whole day. Each afternoon you can expect to see highs in the upper 80s. The Gulf water temperature remain very mild – balmy in fact – with lower and middle 80s common from Dauphin Island east to Panama City.

Tropical Atlantic has been quiet for a number of days, but a disturbance has moved just off the African continent. Any development of this system will be slow to occur, but we are getting into the climatological period for the development of long track/long lasting tropical systems, so this one will bear watching.

For voodoo country followers, the GFS has flipped once again. The eastern US trough maintains a presence through about the 19th of August before it undergoes a change to a big ridge over the eastern half of the country. Right! We’ll see how that comes along as forecast confidence in the extended forecast takes another plunge.

And you can follow news and weather updates from ABC 33/40 on Twitter here. Stay in the know by following the whole gang – here’s the list…

James Spann Charles Daniel Bill Murray
Brian Peters E-Warn (AL wx watches/warnings)

I’ll be filling in for Meaghan Thomas on ABC 3340 at 5 and 10 pm this evening, so be sure to catch the latest weather forecast then. James Spann will have the next Weather Xtreme Video on Monday morning. Godspeed.

-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.

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