High Clouds Arrive

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After a sunny start, a deck of mid to high level clouds have moved into Alabama, in advance of an area of showers over Mississippi. We even have a few radar echoes over West Alabama, but I doubt if any of that is reaching the ground with very dry air below 5,000 feet.

TO THE WEST: A moderate risk of severe weather is up for this evening from Texas up into East Oklahoma and West Arkansas; the first tornado watch of the day has been issued for that area, including the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

THE DAYS AHEAD: While most of tonight should remain dry, showers could develop toward daybreak tomorrow as a surface warm front moves northward from South Alabama. The GFS is hinting the best chance of showers for the I-20 corridor will come tomorrow morning, with the rain shifting to the north during the afternoon, ahead of the northward moving warm front. The sun might even break out tomorrow if this solution is correct, but the day will still be generally cloudy. We do not expect any severe weather in Alabama tomorrow.

Thursday will be the most active day for convection, and SPC has all of Alabama in a slight risk of severe weather. Severe weather parameters are not exactly overwhelming, with surface based CAPE values around 1,000 j/kg, and 0 to 3 km helicity values in the 200 to 250 range. Certainly enough for severe weather, but there is no really deep surface low involved, and wind fields are not especially strong. Hopefully we can get through the day with no big severe weather problems, but I sure can’t make that promise. As usual, the severity of the event will be determined by mesoscale features that we really won’t be able to analyze until early Thursday morning.

The QPF graphic from HPC has lowered rain projections for Alabama into the one to two inch range, and that matches model output nicely.

FRIDAY AND THE WEEKEND: I am beginning to think we can just about take out the chance of rain on Friday for the northern half of the state. We won’t go there just yet, but if the 00Z model runs confirm this trend, we will forecast a clearing sky Friday with cooler temperatures.

Saturday looks like a beautiful spring day with a sunny sky and a high in the mid 70s, about five degrees below average for mid-May. We will leave our forecast for Sunday dry at this point, but we still see some hint of a disturbance riding down the backside of the eastern U.S. upper trough, which might bring some risk of scattered light rain. But, the low levels look very dry Sunday and for now we will simply mention a partly sunny sky.

NEXT WEEK: The GFS brings a cold front down through here in the Monday night/Tuesday morning time frame, but moisture will be limited and we don’t expect much more than a few passing showers. Temperatures should remain below average for the first half of the week with an upper trough holding over the eastern U.S.

VOODOO LAND: Every run of the GFS looks different at the end of the month; the 12Z run has shifted back to a summer look with a 5880 meter 500 mb upper high over the Deep South, meaning hot and muggy weather with just a few scattered afternoon showers or storms.

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 few show tonight featuring Bill Read, the new director of the National Hurricane Center. The show will be posted around 10:00 p.m.

I had a great time speaking to the fourth grade at Kitty Stone Elementary School in Jacksonville today; be looking for them on the KIDCAM today at 5:00 on ABC 33/40 News. The next Weather Xtreme video will be posted here by 7:00 a.m. tomorrow….

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