Alabama 811 | Know What's Below.

Showers Back in the Forecast

| August 3, 2017 @ 7:04 am

The sky across Alabama was mostly cloudy this morning with a rather large mass of rain and showers across Southeast Alabama. Yesterday was quite comfortable as both Birmingham Shuttlesworth Airport and the Shelby County Airport recorded highs of 84. Moisture levels have come back up with dew points in the middle and upper 60s, so showers are once again back in the forecast. It was certainly nice to have about four days of fairly pleasant weather and lowered dew points. But it is August. If just the rest of August could be like yesterday, the summer would be great. Oh, well, some wishful thinking!

A weak short wave at 500 millibars will traverse the area today while the bigger action will be focused well to our northwest where a strong short wave trough was moving into the western Great Lakes. This trough will create a surface low over eastern Iowa which will move into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan Friday. As the surface low moves northeast, a cold front will be dragged into the Southeast US. The GFS has trended a little further south with the front, however, as the upper trough moves into Southeast Canada on Saturday, the front will become parallel to the upper flow and should stall out in the vicinity of Central Alabama. The chances for showers and thunderstorms will be good today, but the chances should be better for Friday. Highs today and Friday will be in the 84 to 88 range.

SPC has an area of the standard slight risk over northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin for Day 1 which is just ahead of the surface low. Day 2 sees the area move eastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania, and western New York. For Day 3, there is a large area of marginal risk over the Central Plains states.

The upper flow becomes nearly zonal across the Southeast on Saturday, but the GFS indicates that the rain chances especially across North Alabama will drop as some drier air manages to make it into that area. Central Alabama will be on the edge of the drier air, so rain chances will go down, but they probably won’t go to zero. The high Saturday should be in the upper 80s.

The flow aloft will remain nearly zonal all the way from Sunday to Thursday, so there won’t be much change to the pattern with showers a possibility each day. I do note a weak short wave trough coming across the Lower Mississippi River Valley on Tuesday and Wednesday which could raise the potential for rain and showers. Highs through this period will be in the 87 to 91 range. On Thursday, the Bermuda high begins to nose into the Southeast US, but that may be clipped off by a tropical system, but this is verging on voodoo country.

Rainfall amounts over the next five days will be varied due to the nature of showers, but places that do get rain could see amounts between three-quarters and one inch.

In the tropical Atlantic, a large area of showers and thunderstorms near the west coast of Africa was associated with a tropical wave. Environmental conditions are forecast to be conducive for gradual development, so a tropical depression could form by early next week from this disturbance. This system is forecast to move toward the west or west-northwest at 10 to 15 mph for the next several days. In the eastern North Pacific there was one area of disturbed weather under surveillance, but development may occur into the weekend as conditions become more favorable as it treks westward.

At the beaches of Alabama and Northwest Florida, the chance for showers will continue through the weekend and into the start of next week. No complete washouts but showers could be fairly numerous at times. You can expect to see highs mainly in the middle 80s and lows in the upper 70s. Click here to see the AlabamaWx Beach Forecast Center page. The Beach Forecast is partially underwritten by the support of Brett/Robinson Vacation Rentals in Gulf Shores and Orange Beach. Click here to see Brett/Robinson’s Own Your Summer specials now!

Looking out into voodoo country, the GFS has whipped up some tropical mischief. The pattern begins with a nearly zonal flow across the Southeast US that gradually becomes a well defined ridge. Well, sort of. The GFS also introduces a tropical system that comes across the Southwest Atlantic east of the Bahamas and chugs it steadily into the Southeast US coast in the vicinity of Savannah, GA. The storm then moves steadily into eastern Kentucky as it moves around the edge of the Bermuda high. With the projected location of the Bermuda high, this pattern is certainly possible, but I won’t be making this forecast just yet. If you saw the Weather Xtreme Video yesterday, you know that there was no such system on that run, so I’ll wait and see if this system even shows up on future runs.

Don’t forget you can listen to our weekly 90 minute netcast anytime on the web, or on iTunes. This is the show all about weather featuring many familiar voices, including our meteorologists here at ABC 33/40.

I’ll have the next Weather Xtreme Video posted here by 7 am or so on Friday with or without the tropical mischief. Since we’ve been dry for several days, I hope your yard gets a passing shower today or Friday. Godspeed.

-Brian-

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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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