Summer Showers

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How many ways can we can “scattered showers and thunderstorms”? Those words will be in our forecast for the foreseeable future. Of course, the coverage and placement of those showers and storms will vary on a daily basis, but there is very little skill in trying to identify those changes due to the subtle nature of the weather features around here in the summer time.

The GFS tries to bring a little sliver of drier air into Alabama from the east today, and shows most of the rain today south of U.S. 82, or south of a line from Tuscaloosa to Montgomery to Eufaula. Might happen, but the model had no clue about the action across the state yesterday, and I doubt if it understands the mesoscale features anyway. I am sure there will be some decent thermal low level boundaries today between cloudy areas, and spots where the sun shines for a decent time this morning, but we really won’t know where those will be until later in the day.

ON THE MAPS: We have a deep upper low over Ohio this morning, with a general weakness or trough extending south. The trough actually runs all the way from Hudson Bay in Canada to the Southwest Gulf of Mexico. A short wave rotating around the upper low should swing through today, helping to fire up showers and storms. Like yesterday, the ones that form won’t move too much; there should be a slow northward drift, and some neighborhoods might see heavy amounts of rain.

LOOKING AHEAD: The upper low will move up into Michigan, and will be kicked out by the end of the week. Around here, we will stay in a relatively moist airmass, and we will mention some risk of scattered showers and storms on a daily basis through the weekend. Temperatures will remain a little below normal, with highs mostly in the 86 to 90 degree range through Friday.

WEEKEND PEEK: Not much change. Sun at times; a chance of scattered showers and storms, and a high around 90 on both Saturday and Sunday. A surface boundary will approach from the north by early next week which might enhance the coverage of showers and storms around here.

NOTES: Huntsville tied their new record low maximum temperature yesterday with a high of only 81… the last time it was that cool on July 23 was in 1917. You probably saw our blog post yesterday afternoon when Gadsden was reporting only 62 degrees around 2:00 p.m. with a steady rain falling. That is 30 degrees below normal for mid to late July in Alabama!

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WEATHER BRAINS: Don’t forget you can listen to our weekly 30 minute netcast anytime on the web, or on iTunes. This is the show all about weather hosted by David Black and featuring many familiar voices, including our meteorologists here at ABC 33/40. We recorded a new show last night which is now available… Kevin Selle will post the show notes here a little later this morning.

Be sure and scroll down and you will find some pictures of our annual summer intern lunch yesterday… we had a great time taking the roads less traveled… Today I will be headed east; I am speaking at RMC (Regional Medical Center) in Anniston late this morning. I will be back in the office by early afternoon, and the afternoon edition of the Weather Xtreme video should be posted by 3:30!

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