Stormy Spring Weather

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

Be sure and scroll down to read J.B.’s excellent post on the April 3-4, 1974 Superoutbreak of tornadoes. Great stuff…

APRIL 3-4, 2008: I am still concerned about the possibility of severe storms blowing up this afternoon and this evening across Alabama. With surface temperatures approaching 80 degrees, looks like instability values will exceed 2,000 j/kg (surface based CAPE) in spots this afternoon, and we have a number of low level boundaries around (wedge front, warm front, and an outflow boundary) for low level convergence. SPC issued a mesoscale update indicating they considering some kind of severe weather watch for the northern half of Alabama and Mississippi, so we will be on our toes for the rest of the afternoon and early tonight.

The main action is beginning way out west, however, SPC just pulled the trigger on a tornado watch for parts of Oklahoma and North Texas, where storms are developing rapidly. Some of these storms will be severe with the potential for tornadoes.

Still looks like our main window for severe weather tomorrow will come from about 3:00 p.m. until 3:00 a.m. (early Saturday morning). Storms that fire tomorrow afternoon could produce isolated tornadoes due to a decent amount of shear, and then a squall line is expected to move through here tomorrow night with the potential for damaging straight line winds. SPC has a 30 percent probability of severe weather within 25 miles of any given point tomorrow, and I would not be surprised if they upgrade our risk to moderate tomorrow morning. Looks like we can expect SBCAPE values of 1,000 to 1,500 j/kg tomorrow afternoon with 0 to 3 km helicity values of 200 to 300.

Bottom line is that you need to be in a position to hear severe weather warnings during the next 36 hours.

The 12Z run of the NAM is printing 1.69″ of rain for Birmingham through Saturday. Looks like most communities can expect one to two inches of rain.

THE WEEKEND: The 12Z model runs are a little slower in ending the rain Saturday morning; in fact the GFS suggests the rain could linger to almost midday in spots. The sky will clear late Saturday afternoon and Saturday night, and Sunday still looks like a beautiful day with ample sunshine and a high in the mid 70s.

NEXT WEEK: Lots of model madness, making for a low confidence forecast. Based on the 12Z run of the GFS, we might need to mention the chance of a shower Tuesday night with a disturbance passing north of the state. Then, later in the week, the model is not as aggressive with the ridging across the Southeast U.S., and it brings a cold front in here with showers and storms late Thursday night and Friday. Lets get through the system tomorrow and we can focus on this over the weekend.

VOODOO LAND: Good news for growers… the 12Z GFS has backed off a bit on the idea of frost here at mid-month, keeping the core of the cold upper trough north of Alabama. But, this is all voodoo and there is no way of resolving specifics so far in advance. Just keep in mind a late season cold snap is still possible at mid-month; we will be able to fine tune this much better next week as it gets closer.

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.

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.

We will keep the blog updated with fresh information this afternoon, tonight, and through the event tomorrow, so stay tuned. I will have the next Weather Xtreme video here by 7:00 a.m. tomorrow!

Category: Uncategorized