Active Weather Day Tomorrow

An all new edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme video is available in the player below, and on iTunes…

A whopper of an upper trough shows up nicely this morning over far West Texas and Mexico. Severe storms have developed ahead of this feature over Texas and Oklahoma today, and SPC has outlooked a moderate risk of severe weather today for much of East Texas and Louisiana. Surrounding this, there is a slight risk of severe weather as far east as the Alabama/Mississippi border. That day one convective outlook is valid through 7:00 a.m. CDT tomorrow, and that is about the time the storms will enter West Alabama.

WIND IS THE WORD: Strong south winds will gust to over 30 mph at times today as the pressure gradient tightens up between low pressure over Texas and high pressure over the Atlantic. Some ridgetops might even experience gusts to over 40 mph. The day will be generally dry, although a rogue shower could show up somewhere.

TOMORROW: Looks like the prime window for strong to severe storms will come from about 5:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. Once again, there is very little surface based instability showing up on model output, but wind fields are very strong at all levels, and the lower atmosphere is highly sheared. All of this should mean a low topped line of storms moving through Alabama with potential for damaging straight line winds, and maybe an isolated tornado. SPC has all of Alabama in a slight risk of severe storms tomorrow for this potential. In terms of rain, we expect at least one inch of rain for most communities; some spots north of Birmingham might see more.

The storms will move into Georgia early tomorrow afternoon, and the rest of the week will be calm and dry with mostly sunny mild days and clear cool nights Thursday and Friday.

EASTER WEEKEND: The 00Z GFS shows cooler and more stable air slowly dropping into Alabama this weekend. Saturday will be dry with a partly sunny sky, but a shower is possible by Sunday as a strong vorticity maximum passes just north of Alabama. With limited moisture and rather stable air, we don’t expect any severe weather or heavy rain this time.

INTO THE LAND OF VOODOO: The GFS has pushed back the next major storm event to March 28… but that will probably change again in coming days.

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 featuring many familiar voices, including our meteorologists here at ABC 33/40. You can even listen here on the blog; look for the player on the top left. An all new episode is available… Brian will post show notes a little later this morning. But, the big topic is the Atlanta tornado activity this past weekend. John Johnson of WXIA-TV in Atlanta is our guest.

Look for the next Weather Xtreme video by 3:30 this afternoon…. enjoy the day!

Category: Uncategorized