Summertime, and the Living is Easy!

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Summer officially began at 12:04 am CDT as the sun reached it’s farthest northward point referred to as the summer solstice. So today is the longest day of the year! And amazingly the temperatures have remained about where we expect to see them in late June with highs 87 to 90 across Central Alabama.

The upper ridge is expected to build in stronger over the next few days, so as it does we should see highs climb upward a bit reaching the lower 90s today early next week. For today, though, the atmosphere remains fairly dry with an easterly flow, so with the moisture return being held off a little, we should see another primarily dry day. Just like yesterday, we could see one or two thunderstorms in the heat of the afternoon, but the majority of us won’t see any rain.

With the upper ridge becoming the principle player in our weather pattern, the forecast becomes one pretty typical of summer with the traveling weather systems pushed northward around the US/Canadian border. This morning is a good example with a large cluster of thunderstorms moving through Minnesota and Wisconsin with a severe thunderstorm watch for that area until 10 am. So look for daily chances of scattered showers over the weekend and into next week with chances in the 20 to 30 percent range so coverage will remain somewhat limited. With the westerly flow pushed northward, the major severe weather risk will continue to be focused in the North Central US.

That upper ridge begins to show signs of breaking down on Thursday. A strong short wave trough will becoming out of Central Canada to dampen the ridge and force the ridge westward along the Rockies. This sets the stage for the potential for a cold front to make it southward into the Ohio River Valley by next Friday. This is a very nice pattern to see at the end of June since it will significantly impact the heat and keep us close to where we typically are in late June with highs around 90. And as I noted yesterday, the ECMWF is in close agreement with the GFS on this pattern, so confidence is good that we will see this come about.

Looking further into week two, or voodoo country, the GFS continues to point to the domination of the troughiness over the eastern half of the country, so as we head into the early days of July, there is no sign of any significant heat for us. Woohoo!!

Tropics are quiet once again as Barry rained out over extreme southern Mexico.

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We had a nice turnout for the National Weather Association (NWA) Central Alabama Chapter meeting last night at the BJCC. It was nice to see my friend, Bill Read, once again, and he did a nice job of presenting a look at some of the problems facing coastal areas with approaching storms. Bill will be enjoying a round of golf here today before he wings his way back home to Houston. Enjoy your day and Godspeed.

-Brian-

Category: Alabama's Weather