Alabama Weather Update – 7 p.m.

It is a foggy, misty, murky night across Central Alabama. Visibilities are as low as 1/2 mile at the Birmingham Airport. The visibility in Tuscaloosa is 1 1/2 miles. Both are reporting mist. Mist is the new fog. But today’s mist is bordering on drizzle.

Be careful if you are going to be out tonight. Leave extra time to reach your destination and drive carefully.

A surface front extends southwest to northeast across the middle of the state, just south of I-20. South of the front, dewpoints are near 60. A large surface low is over the middle of the state, slowly gaining strength.

To the southwest, a new surface low has formed near New Orleans. Rain is building again over Southeast Louisiana, southern Mississippi and South Alabama. The rain extends as far north as Montgomery. There is lightning out over the Gulf of Mexico in the warm sector of the second low. This will move onshore into Florida Panhandle and perhaps Southeast Alabama tonight.

North of the solid rain area, showers were forming along the frontal zone across eastern Shelby County around Columbiana and Wilsonville. Other moderate showers were exiting eastern Alabama’s Calhoun and Cleburne Counties south of Piedmont.

I think the showers will increase from Shelby County northeastward over the next couple of hours and may produce some rainfall amounts around one tenth of an inch. Heavier amounts will fall over South Central and South Alabama overnight.

The main trough axis will slide eastward tomorrow as a big upper low forms over the Ohio Valley. This feature will be accompanied by some extremely cold air aloft. As this low spins moisture into Alabama and the air cools, light rain and drizzle will change over to a rain/snow mix late Sunday afternoon and Sunday night and continue into Monday.

Air temperatures will hover around 50 on Sunday before the real cold advection begins Sunday night and Monday. Monday promises to be a raw day with highs remaining in the 30s, a chill northwest wind and occasional light rain/snow showers. No accumulations are anticipated, but any convective snow bursts that form could whiten the ground briefly. Up to an inch on mainly grassy surfaces is expected across the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee.

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