Nice Day Before Rain Event

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Central Alabama should remain dry today with a surface high pressure system located off to our northeast. The high, however, is also creating a wedge or cold air damming situation with moisture and clouds from the east working into East Central and Southeast Alabama. In the upper atmosphere, we have a complex pattern with a weakness in the 500 millibar flow that is working its way through the upper ridge while a major trough remains over the Southwest US. This weakness will work its way southeastward Sunday as the surface flow comes around to the south allowing moisture to increase and bring rain chances up rapidly Saturday night and early Sunday. Sunday and Sunday night look to be wet with heavy rain possible. Rainfall amounts of 1 to 2 inches are likely across the area for a good soaking rain. Clouds and rain will also keep temperatures down with highs in the 70s.

Flooding is not expected to be a major issue because conditions have been dry. But the potential for some spots to get heavy rain means we’ll need to watch the flooding potential as the event unfolds. Isolated thunderstorms are possible but instability does not appear to be high enough for severe weather. SPC has a slight risk area over the Southwest US for Day 1 and none for Days 2 and 3.

For football interests today, Auburn hosts Louisiana Tech at 3:00 pm at Jordan-Hare Stadium. The sky will be mostly cloudy with a kickoff temperature near 80 degrees, dropping back into the 70s by the fourth quarter. Just a slight risk of a shower during the fourth quarter of the game. And UAB will host Florida International at 2:30 pm at Legion Field in Birmingham with a partly sunny sky and about 82 degrees at kickoff, and upper 70s by the final whistle.

Scattered showers are expected along the Gulf Coast today and the beach should be relatively wet Sunday with occasional showers and storms. Highs will hold in the 80s. Water temperatures are in the upper 70s.

The weak disturbance moves by us by Tuesday bringing an end to the rain. Weak ridging will develop behind this weak disturbance as the major trough over the Southwest US moves northeastward into the North Central US. This should bring us dry weather for the middle of the week from Tuesday to Thursday. Highs will be in the 80s with lows mainly in the 60s.

By Friday the deep trough to our west will be getting closer and an approaching cold front is likely to ramp up the rain chances for the end of the week. This could mean good rain chances for Friday night football games. This is far enough into the future that timing of the front could change.

Looking well into the future, the GFS is holding a sizable trough over the eastern half of the country through October 7th with the upper ridge building over the eastern US from the 8th through the 12th. By the end of the period around October 12th, another strong trough is forecast over the Rockies moving eastward. So it looks like October could be more active than we typically see.

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I’ll have the next Weather Xtreme Video posted Sunday morning by 8 am or so. Enjoy the dry day before a wet Sunday. Godspeed.

-Brian-

Category: Alabama's Weather