Wet Weather Ahead for Us

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Looking like a wet period in store for us with a broad but somewhat weak trough over the Lower Mississippi River. This broad trough with a number of weak impulses rotating through the trough will continue to moisten the atmosphere and generate showers and thunderstorms through Monday. It is difficult to time the exact motion of these weak disturbances. One actually moved through Central Alabama overnight but due to the dryness of the lower atmosphere between 800 and 600 millibars, very little precipitation was actually recorded at the ground. My gauge saw 1 hundredth of an inch – hardly enough to dampen the dust.

I expect we will see showers becoming increasingly more likely during the afternoon and early evening. In the meantime, we’ll see cloudy skies with sprinkles possible. With the weak trough in our area for the next few days, the weather will remain unsettled. I think the best rain chances will come Sunday, Mother’s Day, as the center of the broad trough gets closer to us. For today, we will watch for showers developing to our west and potentially dousing some sections of Central Alabama.

A short wave continues to show coming out of the Rockies on Monday which will finally sweep the broad trough creating the unsettled weather off to our east. That should happen on Tuesday as the stronger short wave moves across the area. That changes the pattern for us into a northwesterly flow pattern, so the rain chances should be ending Wednesday with drier air in store for us for the latter part of the week. And right now we look dry and pleasant all the way into next weekend.

Rainfall amounts will be varied over the next four days with amounts in the 1 to 2 inch range. I think there is a strong potential for us to see widespread amounts closer to the 2 inch amount, and that can’t hurt us with the overall lack of rain for the last couple of months.

Looking into voodoo country, the pattern of a trough over the eastern US with a ridge along the Rockies stays with us on May 22nd. Come the end of May, around the 27th, we see an interesting pattern with some mischief over the Florida Peninsula. Could it be a reflection of a tropical disturbance? Well, it could since hurricane season will begin June 1. But as seasoned Blog readers know, it’s voodoo, so it will probably be gone in the next run. But certainly fun to speculate on this one!!

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Shameless plug for the Buck Creek Festival today. If you like music, crafts, great food, kids activities, Old Town Helena is the place to be with lot of all of that! I hope to see you there. The next Weather Xtreme Video will be posted Sunday morning. Godspeed.

-Brian-

Category: Alabama's Weather