Thunderstorms Again Today

There is not a Weather Xtreme Video for today due to my not having sufficient Internet connectivity to post a video. My daughter and I are in Pittsburg, NH, only 13 miles from the Canadian border, where we have been on a quest for moose.

West Central Alabama woke up to the sound of thunder this morning as a rather large mass of thunderstorms rolled into the state from Mississippi. That large area of rain dissipated as it moved eastward, so only the western sections got what I would describe as a good drenching. The showers were along and ahead of a cold front that stretched all the way from Lake Erie southwestward to near Tupelo and on southwestward to the Houston area. Aloft there was a strong trough over Ohio as well as a short wave coming through the Central Plains states.

Temperatures were in the upper 60s and lower 70s across Central Alabama, the cooler readings generally in the areas where rain fell this morning. Highs today should climb into the lower and mid 80s once again in spite of what is expected to be a mostly cloudy day with thunderstorms likely to occur this afternoon and evening.

The trough over the Ohio Valley will move east-northeast today and is the driving force behind the slight risk area for severe weather in a narrow swath from extreme Southwest Virginia into northern New England – where I happen to be at this time. Since the trough is weakening, the flow is becoming unidirectional so the predominant storm mode is likely to be that of a squall line. The biggest severe weather threat will be damaging wind and hail.

The short wave over the Central Plains will swing across Alabama early Monday morning, so it should sweep the front out of the state. Drier air will be coming into the Southeast after the front, so I expect to see dew points drop a good deal with values perhaps getting back into the upper 50s. This should mean some lowered humidity until about mid week even though temperatures won’t really change much.

Aloft we come under weak ridging as a series of short waves move across the northern tier of the US. With the westerlies further north, we should stay dry through Wednesday. By Thursday, the overall pattern becomes somewhat muddled with a short wave moving across the Lower Mississippi River Valley. This along with increased moisture will lead to scattered showers becoming possible Thursday, Friday, and into next weekend. Highs don’t come down much with the front, just lowered humidity, so highs will remain in the mid and upper 80s. We could again push the 90-degree mark Tuesday and Wednesday, but more clouds for the end of the week and the weekend suggest highs stay in the upper 80s.

Rainfall amounts will be quite varied due to the nature of thunderstorms. Some spots could see amounts of 1 to 1.5 inches while other places could see less than a quarter of an inch. We’ve already seen that this morning with rainfall a lot more in western counties than in central and eastern counties.

The tropics are quiet though I do note a large cloud mass over the Yucatan Peninsula and western Cuba. NHC is not making mention of this area, however, the GFS is still projecting a surface low moving northeastward from the Yucatan Peninsula across the eastern Gulf. The European has a similar solution to the GFS. In fact, the two models are much closer in their solutions today than they were yesterday. A funny thing about the GFS is that it suddenly washes out the surface low by Saturday, while the ECMWF maintains the surface low and moves it across northern Florida into the Southwest Atlantic near the Carolina coast. As I said yesterday, this is a true “stay tuned” situation since there remain considerable uncertainty in the situation. Whether or not a tropical system forms, it appears that southern Florida is in for a period of rain with a five day projection of 4 to 8 inches across the southern third of Florida.

Looking into voodoo country, the GFS is still holding onto the idea of a very deep trough over the eastern US around June 12th to 14th, much like the run yesterday morning. Consistency is good for this, but the pattern drawn by the GFS seems a little too strong for mid-June. I sure would not mind it because it would really keep temperatures in check as we head into summer. This pattern would also mean a substantial rain event around the 12th and 13th for the Southeast US.

This morning my daughter and I headed out just after sunrise for Moose Alley, the stretch of US 3 from Pittsburg, NH, to the Canadian border. We were excited to see a moose standing in a small cleared area along the road and occasionally drinking from some fresh puddles created by overnight showers. I’ll try to post some images later since we are headed into Maine for our outing today.

James Spann will be back with the next Weather Xtreme Video on Monday morning. Enjoy the day and Godspeed.

-Brian-

Category: Alabama's Weather