Severe Weather Threat Tomorrow

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

Today is the 34th anniversary of the largest outbreak of tornadoes on record in the U.S… the “Superoutbreak” came on April 3-4, 1974. This week’s WeatherBrains episode features some weather legends that worked that event, including Al Pearson, who developed the F scale along with Ted Fujita. You can listen to the show using the player on the left sidebar of the blog. Also, you can see a great video about the tornadoes in Alabama that night here, featuring J.B. Elliott:

THE ALABAMA WEATHER STORY: The stalled front over Alabama will northward today, putting most of the state in moist, unstable air. However, a wedge front will slip into East Alabama this morning, and will keep temperatures considerably cooler near the Georgia border.

We will mention a chance of scattered showers and storms this afternoon and this evening, especially near the wedge front. Some strong storms are possible west of the wedge, where the air will be rather unstable as temperatures reach 80 degrees and CAPE values exceed 1000 j/kg.

TO THE WEST: SPC maintains a moderate risk of severe weather later today for much of Texas, and adjacent parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas, and the northwest corner of Louisiana. It will be interesting to see what fires up out in that direction.

SEVERE WEATHER THREAT TOMORROW: Most of Alabama is in a slight severe weather risk tomorrow afternoon and tomorrow night. Scroll down for Tim Coleman’s excellent discussion; note the large positive area on that forecast sounding. Scattered storms should begin to fire up by mid to late afternoon over West Alabama, and those storms could be severe with the potential for isolated tornadoes. Then, a squall line moves through tomorrow night, with the prime threat coming from damaging straight line winds. We still believe the main severe weather window will come from 3:00 p.m. tomorrow through 3:00 a.m. Saturday. As always, we encourage everyone to be near a good source of weather information during this time in the event warnings are needed.

The 00Z NAM extraction is printing 1.54″ of rain for Birmingham during the next 48 hours, and that sounds like a good number. I think the HPC QPF graphic seen on the Weather Xtreme video is a little too aggressive; it hints at some 3 to 4 inch totals over the Tennessee Valley.

THE WEEKEND: The 00Z runs are a little slower in getting the rain out of here on Saturday, but we still think most of the storms will be out of here by 7:00 to 8:00 Saturday morning, followed by a clearing sky Saturday afternoon along with a high near 70. Sunday looks beautiful, with ample sunshine and a high in the mid 70s.

NEXT WEEK AND BEYOND: Sure looks like much of next week will be dry. Model trends continue the idea of the ridge holding across the Southeast U.S., keeping the big western upper trough away through Friday. The 00Z GFS hints the next chance of showers and storms will come on Saturday April 12, with little chance of a major severe weather problem with the upper support well to the north.

One screaming message we are getting is the potential for a mid-month cold snap; the 00Z GFS shows this possibility in the April 14-17 time frame. So, the idea remains on the table for one or two frosty mornings at mid-month… we won’t be able to be specific until we get within seven days of the event.

PRIME TIME TV SPECIAL: Join ABC 33/40 on the occasional of the tenth anniversary of the April 8, 1998 F5 tornado for a prime time weather special. The show will air from 6:30 until 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, April 8; for one hour we will look back at this historic storm, through the eyes of those that covered the storm for ABC 33/40, and those in the path of the storm who survived. We will also be going to a live memorial service at Open Door Church, one of the many churches who lost their building that horrible Wednesday night.

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

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