Rain IS Arriving

| June 19, 2007 @ 7:26 am | 4 Replies

The latest edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme Video is available in the player below and on iTunes…

The radar imagery across the northern half of Mississippi looks fantastic this morning as a large area of rain with embedded thunderstorms marches slowly toward northern Alabama. The rain should really help the area of North Alabama where some of the worst drought conditions exist. We were upgraded to “exceptional,” the highest category for drought, some weeks back. While this rain will not erase the deficit we have which is well over 15 inches, it will surely provide some much needed relief.

Rainfall should be fairly widespread, but rainfall amounts will not be uniform owing to the showery nature of the event. I still believe that most of the area will get one half to one inch with some areas getting one to two inches of rain. The rain and clouds will also help to keep temperatures down with highs today dropping out of the 90s for only the fourth time this month.

Not to be ungrateful, but the rain moves out all too quickly – faster than I’d like to see. Wednesday drier air will come into Central Alabama behind the cold front promising a beautiful sunny day but temperatures should climb quickly back toward 90 degrees.

Dry weather should be with us through the end of the week. The northwesterly flow pattern shows a number of weak disturbances, so we’ll have to keep a watchful eye for the development of large thunderstorm clusters well to our northwest. These mesoscale convection complexes, or MCCs, can form and travel hundreds of miles, but they are difficult to forecast more than a day or so in advance.

By early next week we should be under a ridge with highs back into the mid and upper 90s.

In the longer range the GFS is promising another long wave trough over the eastern US. This pattern, if it comes true, could bring another cold front our way during the last few days of June, something I would love to see. And as we enter July, the GFS maintains the long wave trough position across the eastern US.

Tropics remain very quiet with almost no clouds to speak of.

I plan to have the next Weather Xtreme Video posted no later than 9 am tomorrow morning. Have a great Tuesday and enjoy the rain. Say, did we ever get the state holiday declaration for this rain?

-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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