Humidity on the Increase, Showers Mon & Tue

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Moisture increased slowly yesterday but even with the increase the afternoon humidity was still not bad. Puffy cumulus clouds filled much of the sky over the Southeast US yesterday. Birmingham recorded a high of 88 which is exactly on spot for the 30-year average for yesterday.

With the surface high well off to the east of us, moisture will continue to increase as dew points climb into the upper 60s. Aloft, the upper air pattern has a slight troughiness to it as we watch a parade of weak disturbances move through the west to east flow. These disturbances will help to create periods of showers and thunderstorms for the next couple of days, especially Monday and Tuesday. A weak front will sag into the area on Monday.

While there is no specific outlook for severe weather for Alabama, a few storms today and again Monday could be strong to marginally severe with relatively high instability due to the combination of good surface heating and those weak impulses that will assist with some greater lift. Lifted index values today could be in the -6 range with CAPE values around 2000 joules per kilogram. Monday the instability is even a tad better with lifted index values around -8 and CAPE values around 2500. This is certainly not likely to be any kind of widespread severe weather event, but there is at least some potential for isolated strong to marginally severe storms with damaging wind and hail the main threats. Of course, there is likely to be a good deal of lightning.

With the frontal boundary in the area on Tuesday, thunderstorms are again likely to occur as there is little change to the upper flow with small upper disturbances to deal with. It looks like there very well could be a break in thunderstorm activity on Wednesday and Wednesday evening, though I’m not sure there is enough evidence to completely remove rain chances.

For the rest of the week and into the weekend, the upper ridge becomes a more dominant player aloft and the frontal boundary will wash out. This opens us to our typical daily shower regime with temperatures dancing around the 90-degree point.

Rainfall is going to be spotty simply because of the nature of showers. However, some spots could get as much as 2 inches of rain over the next five days. The graphic shows widespread rain, however, we all know that rainfall amounts will depend largely on the overall coverage of showers and thunderstorms.

The tropics are still fairly quiet. An area of cloudiness and showers in the extreme Southwest Caribbean is being watched by NHC, however, while there is some reason to believe conditions could become more favorable for development, no tropical storm formation is expected in the next couple of days.

Long range projections remain unchanged as the GFS continues to show the development of a large upper high over the Ohio River Valley at the end of June. If this is accurate, there would be a fairly significant heat event for much of the eastern US.

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James Spann will be taking next week off, so I will be posting the Weather Xtreme Videos each morning on a one a day basis through next weekend. I’ll also be filling in for Ashley this evening and again next weekend on ABC 3340 news. Happy Father’s Day to all those dads tuning in. I hope you have a great day. Godspeed.

-Brian-

Category: Alabama's Weather