A Beautiful Day Is In Progress Across Alabama

The last of the post frontal clouds are about to exit Southeast Alabama early this afternoon in the wake of yesterday’s storm system.

The good news is that there were no severe weather reports anywhere in Alabama. And even better news is that most of the area got a nice soaking rain.

Yesterday’s rainfall amounts:

But as you can see for the last six months Central and North Alabama are still running some serious deficits:

And the early spring isn’t helping. Most vegetation is three weeks ahead of schedule according to State Climatologist Dr. John Christy and this means water resources are being used by growing plants instead of going into streams. He notes that many streamflows over North Alabama are at near record lows. Not good news as we get ready for the approaching heat of summer.

The Drought Monitor will come out Thursday and it will be interesting to see if we can lop a category off our current drought level.

But it is obvious that we are not out of the woods yet as far as the drought goes.

Today, however, could not be more beautiful across Central Alabama. We have a case of severe clear across the state with temperatures in the middle 60s in the Tennessee Valley, upper 60s in the I-20 Corridor and edging above 70F to the South. Most folks will hit or come close to hitting 70F today.

Dewpoints are in the lower 20s however, giving the air a refreshing quality. Winds are generally light, out of the north.

High pressure is centered over Yampertown, AL today. That’s in Marion County northeast of Winfield if you are interested. Sinking air associated with the high is giving us the fine weather. It will be clear and cool tonight, with lows generally in the lower 40s along and south of US-78/280, with some 30s to the northeast under the departing high.

The jet stream has a split personality right now, with the northern branch hugging the Canadian border and the southern branch diving around a trough west of Mexico. The northern branch will sink south as we head toward the end of the week a passing disturbance and invading cold front will trigger clouds and showers starting Thursday night and into Friday. Rainfall amounts will be light, generally less than one quarter of an inch.

But he southern branch will try to link up again with the northern branch and it will do this right over Alabama. There are big inconsistencies in the model solutions for Saturday, with the European bringing a much stronger low along the northern Gulf Coast. The GFS moves a disturbance through the Tennessee Valley, and yields much high er rainfall amounts for Central Alabama. The European gives us next to nothing. We will pull for the GFS and hope for rain. Severe weather does not look like a problem with this next system.

Dry weather returns for the first part of the following week.

In voodooland, we get a few shots of rain out through the end of the period, March 24th, but no big severe weather looks. That’s good news.

The GFS is still bullish on the idea of snow for Tennessee Saturday night. Check out the snow depth graphic from this morning’s run valid at 7 a.m. CDT Sunday morning.

Category: Alabama's Weather, ALL POSTS