A Nice Warm-Up Today

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 for pictures from the South Cullman County tornado from Mike Wilhelm… that one was rated EF-2 as it moved through Arkadelphia and Colony. We have many other pictures from our readers in the “pictures” category of the blog (click on pictures in the categories list on the left side of the blog). Heflin’s tornado was rated EF-1.

Pretty chilly out there; our Skywatcher at Black Creek, northeast of Gadsden, reports 39 degrees this morning. Not bad for mid-May… most other spots around here are in the 40s. Today will be another sunny day with a high close to 80 degrees, which is the average high for May 13.

STORMS RETURN: A storm system moving out of the Rockies will bring a chance of showers or storms to Alabama during the day tomorrow, perhaps becoming a little more numerous tomorrow night. But, the wettest day of the week will come on Thursday with numerous showers and storms.

SPC has all of Alabama in a slight risk of severe weather Thursday; the setup doesn’t exactly look “classic”, but there should be enough instability and shear for a chance of strong to severe storms. There is no deep surface low involved, and instability values on the latest GFS are generally below 1,000 j/kg. But, as usual, we really won’t know the mesoscale setup until Thursday morning, so the situation certainly bears watching.

By Friday, the best chance of showers will shift down to the south of Birmingham as drier air begins to return to North Alabama.

Some beneficial rain is likely; the latest QPF guidance from HPC hints at two inches of rain for much of the state tomorrow through Friday.

THE WEEKEND: Saturday looks like a beautiful day, with ample sunshine and a high in the upper 70s. A deep upper trough forms over the eastern third of the nation Sunday, and that should keep highs in the 70s. There is a hint of disturbance riding down the back side of the trough that might bring a little scattered light rain to North Alabama Sunday afternoon, but for now the air looks pretty dry and we won’t mention that in our formal forecast.

NEXT WEEK AND BEYOND: Lots of model madness; the 00Z run of the GFS now wants to show a mean upper trough over the eastern U.S. lasting through the rest of May that will keep temperatures below average, but other runs have shown a building ridge just like summer. Needless to say, no real confidence in any solution beyond seven days at this point.

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. We will record a new episode tonight; Bill Read, the new director of the National Hurricane Center, will be our guest.

Today I am off to Kitty Stone Elementary School in Jacksonville; I have been speaking to fourth graders in May at Kitty Stone for many, many years… a great tradition and I always look forward to the visit. I will be back in the office by early afternoon, and the next Weather Xtreme video will be posted by 3:30 this afternoon. Enjoy the day!

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