Unsettled Today

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The weather across Central Alabama remains unsettled this morning as a result of a surface convergence zone and an upper level short wave that should slowly move eastward today allowing for improving weather from the west. But for today, heavy rains along with the training of storms will present a serious flash flood issue especially for the areas east and southeast of the Birmingham area. Flash flood warnings were in effect at this writing for portions of Clay, Calhoun, and Talladega counties. Additional development of scattered storms may result in additional flash flood warnings today as the area east and southeast of Birmingham received a good soaking with thunderstorms last night. There does not appear to be a significant threat for severe weather though we will have to watch for isolated storms to become marginally severe.

The upper trough will move slowly eastward toward which should shift the threat eastward out of Alabama tonight and Sunday. As the trough shifts eastward, we come under an upper ridge, so I expect to see the weather improve for us late Sunday and into Monday and Tuesday of the coming week. The upper ridge will also warm us up some perhaps presenting us with the warmest day of 2013 as highs edge toward 90 degrees on Tuesday.

The big storm system to our west responsible for the moderate risks for severe weather in the Central Plains today and Sunday will edge closer Wednesday as moisture values increase. This will bring showers back into the forecast. As the big upper low heads into the Great Lakes area on Thursday, we will see another wet day for the Southeast US. There may be some risk for severe weather on Thursday, but at the moment, it is not a clear cut situation that is going to depend more on mesoscale features, so we’ll need to keep an eye on it.

The front should be exiting on Friday taking the storm chances with it for Alabama which means a fairly nice Saturday for next weekend. The upper flow becomes northwesterly for us, so we will see a nice drop in the warm temperatures will highs dipping back into the upper 70s.

Looking out into voodoo country, the cool pattern is in place Sunday, but begins to change with a strong upper ridge becoming established toward the end of May. But the GFS is always ready to throw a surprise our way, and it does here, too. The GFS shows a strong surface low over the Yucatan Peninsula on May 30th which moves northeastward to near Tampa, FL, on the 31st. I really suspect that the next run will probably show something different, however, should the GFS be correct in this solution, the 2013 hurricane season could get off to an early start and this low would get the name Andrea. I’m not stepping out onto this limb just yet, but it is an interesting develop and one that will be carefully watched in future runs.

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I had a great time emceeing the Relay for Life event at Thompson High School last night. The rain put a damper on things, but the spirit of the people there was great as the North Shelby group raised money for cancer research. I believe this was my third time to emcee their event, and I appreciate their invitation. The next Weather Xtreme Video will be posted by 7:30 or so on Sunday morning. Stay dry and Godspeed.

-Brian-

Category: Alabama's Weather