Alabama Now–4:15 Report

Widely separated showers continue across North-Central Alabama this afternoon, including a moderate to heavy shower over East Shelby County.

Earlier this afternoon, a loud cheer went up from the 33/40 Studio in Riverchase when a quick shower produced 0.33 of rain.

Across the south half of Alabama, the showers are a bit more numerous, but still only scattered. A heavy shower was moving into South Sumter and NW Marengo Ccounties. There were also some scattered heavy showers over South-Central and SE Alabama.

Considerable lightning is reported in some of the storms over South-Central and SE Alabama.

EXCEPTIONAL DROUGHT
The U.S. Drought Monitor has now placed part of North Alabama under the Exceptional Drought classification. This includes much of the northern third of the state, except the NW corner and NE corner where the drought is still rated as extreme. They have four classifications of drought (D0 through D4). Exceptional is D4 and extreme is D3. Generally speaking, it is considered a drought that would occur on the average of once every 50 yeas.

There is some hope for the next couple of days, when there will be an increase in showers and thunderstorms, especially later tomorrow and Saturday. Even so, those will not be nearly enough to make a great impact on the drought. If you are lucky to be under one of those showers or thunderstorms, you could get some temporary relief for your scorched lawn. During the next two days, some communities will get over 1/2 inch of rain. In a few cases, 1 inch is an outside possibility.

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