Upper Ridge Becoming Main Player

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What a beautiful day we saw across the northern two-thirds of Alabama yesterday with a great blue sky and puffy cumulus clouds as the humidity dipped a little thanks to lower dew points. Highs ranged from 86 at Anniston to 90 at Tuscaloosa. It looks like we should have one more day of dry weather, perhaps two, before the weather pattern shifts slightly as moisture slowly returns giving us a summer-like pattern with daily shower chances.

Interesting to watch the tropics with the formation of Tropical Storm Barry yesterday afternoon. Barry barely made it into the tropical storm category, and Barry is going ashore on the Mexican coast in the vicinity of Veracruz, Mexico, this morning. But Barry will continue to be problem as it produces heavy rain as it slowly dissipates.

Back home, the diffuse frontal boundary remained along the Gulf coast with slightly drier air in place as evidenced by lower dew points. This morning the dew point was 70 at Montgomery but 66 at Birmingham, and while this is not a big difference, it is enough to help keep showers from developing. The atmosphere above the ground also dried out a good deal, too, with precipitable water values down around 1.10″, far less than we typically see in the summer months.

The upper ridge to our west will be grabbing the spotlight over the next couple of days which will help to return us to those heat-driven daily shower chances as the atmosphere slowly moistens up. With the eastward progression of the ridge as it builds stronger, the westerlies will be pushed northward. This is reflected in the main severe weather chances as outlined by SPC located across the North Central US for the next three days.

The pattern remains pretty much static with little change through next Monday and Tuesday. Then we begin to see what may be a very welcome change for the eastern half of the country. As we get into Wednesday, a strong trough moving across southern Canada is forecast to dig into the eastern US, dampening the ridge and forcing it back into the western US. This is not the typical summertime pattern, and it would certainly keep the heat in check if it does happen. Some additional good news is that the European and the GFS are very much on the same page with this solution. In fact, it appears that the European is a tad deeper on the trough. This could mean that we see another frontal boundary make it southward into the Southeast US and perhaps strongly enough to result in a period of lowered humidity and highs below our 30-year averages.

Continuity between models is a confidence builder, but we have to remember that we are close to voodoo country and this pattern is a bit of an anomaly from what we usually see. So we’ll continue to watch how the models handle it in future runs, but it is certainly giving us hope for a coolish June. As we get into July, the trough remains the major upper air player, but upper heights do generally move upward by the 5th of July.

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Looking forward to the NWA Central Alabama Chapter meeting tonight at 7 pm at the BJCC. You can get all the info on it here. The next Weather Xtreme Video will be posted on Friday morning. Have a great day and Godspeed.

-Brian-

Category: Alabama's Weather