Checking the Alabama Weather Situation at 9:55

A line of low topped showers and storms continues eastward across Alabama at 25 mph this morning.

When I made the graphic ten minutes ago, a storm in Cullman county was the strongest on radar. I t is near Holly Pond and is still putting down decent amount of lightning and maybe small hail. Now the storm near Guntersville in Marshall County is the strongest.

The storms approaching in the Birmingham metro are weakening.

The storms have hardly anything to work with in the way of instability, as evidenced by this map of current CAPE values:

You have to work hard to find 100 joules of CAPE, which is very low. That may change as the line gets into East Alabama, especially where the sun can break through. Colder air is moving in aloft, and this can send instability values upward.

Behind the line, drier air is working in and it will be hard to work on additional thunderstorms behind the main line, although that is not out of the question.

Wind shear values are high ahead of the line, so if we had instability, we would have problems.

So…bottom line…little instability means hard to get strong storms. Any that do for mainly east of I-65 later where instability increases could rotate and produce damaging winds. Isolated tornado not out of the question, but more likely in Georgia and South Carolina. Hail is a possibility with stronger storms.

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