No Drought Relief

An all new edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme video is available in the player below, and on iTunes…

Here are some quick facts on the Alabama drought:

*Birmingham’s rain total for the year is 10.28″
*The deficiency since January 1 is 13.35″
*The rain total for May is only 1.08″
*Birmingham has seen measurable rain on only three days in May
*We have seen measurable rain on only 10 out of the last 66 days

Many water systems are now imposing mandatory restrictions on water use, and this morning we see no significant chance of rain for the next seven days.

SHORT TERM: A nice trough coming out of the Northwest U.S. will ultimately swing into Canada, bypassing Alabama. The associated surface front will stall out well to the north of here, and unfortunately that will most likely leave us high and dry through the upcoming Memorial Day weekend. About the most interesting feature is the wedge; some cooler air could work into the state from the east by mid-week along with some scattered clouds. Temperatures won’t drop all that much, however, and we expect highs generally in the 80s through the weekend.

MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND: At this point the weather looks dry for the Gulf coast and the Great Smoky mountains this weekend with warm days and pleasant nights.

LONG TERM: We do note that the GFS over the weekend did its best to develop a tropical system in the Gulf of Mexico; a number of runs took a tropical storm north to the Florida panhandle, and that seems to be our only hope for beneficial rain across the Southeast U.S. The 00Z GFS lost this feature one it moved north of the Yucatan channel… but there is no doubt that the tropics will need to be watched in coming weeks. Buoy 42056 in the far Northwest Caribbean shows a water temperature of 83.7 degrees (F) this morning.

HEADED FOR THE BEACHES? Check out the 2007 version of “Spann’s Best Way To The Bama Beaches”….

WEATHER PARTY: Get all the latest weather news over on our sister site, WeatherParty.com. Be sure and register while you are there; you can submit stories and vote on them to determine what is published on the front page.

WEATHER BRAINS: We will record a new episode of Weather Brains, our weekly 30 minute netcast, tonight… you can listen to last week’s show on the web, or on iTunes.

Be sure and scroll down for some pictures of the Cahaba Lillies in bloom, and from the Regions Charity Golf Classic at Ross Bridge. What a beautiful weekend… I will have the next Weather Xtreme video posted by 3:30 this afternoon!

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