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Dry Today and Tuesday

| July 29, 2013 @ 7:01 am

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Today is the anniversary of the hottest day ever recorded in Birmingham. On July 29, 1930, the mercury climbed to a high of 107F at the Weather Bureau office located in Fountain Heights, just north of downtown Birmingham. But nothing close to that is expected today as highs climb to around the 90-degree mark.

The upper closed low and the eastern US trough will be moving out today, but drier air has settled into much of North and Central Alabama. Dew points this morning were in the middle 60s from about Clanton northward. The drier atmosphere should keep showers away today and perhaps tomorrow, too, as the upper ridges to our west and east extend across the area. But because temperatures are warm, an isolated shower or two might occur, but the majority of the area will be dry. This should see afternoon temperatures reach the 88 to 92 degree range.

But just as a seesaw goes up and down, the ridging pattern gives way another eastern US trough as we head into Wednesday and Thursday. This will once again drive a weak frontal boundary into the Southeast US, improving our chances for rain as the drier air is replaced by additional moisture. So it appears that our best chances for showers and thunderstorms will come on Wednesday and Thursday. Instability could be sufficient then to generate an isolated severe storm, but it’s too early to be precise on this threat.

And with the northwesterly flow, we’ll have to be vigilant for any disturbances that might create those large thunderstorm clusters that could propagate across the area.

By Friday and into the weekend, that boundary will be draped across the Southeast US, so for now it is hard to tell if we will actually dry out enough to take showers completely out of the forecast. However, it does appear likely that showers would be more scattered and less numerous for the weekend.

And just like we saw with the current situation, the frontal boundary only represents a slight drying in the atmosphere and no real change in temperatures. The 30-year average high for late July and early August sits around 91, so we will be close to that or a degree or two below.

Looking further afield, week two shows a similar pattern of a trough across the eastern US with a broad closed low over about Iowa. This could prove to be even a little wetter for us with a more southwesterly flow aloft, but we are well into voodoo country so we’ll watch the trend. These closed lows in the extended time frame have a habit of disappearing in future runs.

Beach weather looks pretty good for the next few days with only a slight chance of daily showers which should be brief. Afternoon highs will be around 90 with about 6 to 8 hours of sunshine. But be aware that the rip current threat is moderate along most of the Alabama and Northwest Florida coastline, so be aware of this if venturing into the Gulf waters.

And you can follow news and weather updates from ABC 33/40 on Twitter here. Stay in the know by following the whole gang – here’s the list…

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We’ll be recording WeatherBrains this evening, and you can see it as it happens by going to bigbrainsmedia.com. The next Weather Xtreme Video wll be posted by 8 am or so on Tuesday morning as we are on a one-a-day schedule this week while James Spann is off. Enjoy your day and Godspeed.

-Brian-

Category: Alabama's Weather

About the Author ()

Brian Peters is one of the television meteorologists at ABC3340 in Birmingham and a retired NWS Warning Coordination Meteorologist. He handles the weekend Weather Xtreme Videos and forecast discussion and is the Webmaster for the popular WeatherBrains podcast.

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