Dry Today And Wetter Wed and Thu

An all new edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme video is available in the player on the right sidebar of the blog. You can subscribe to the Weather Xtreme video on iTunes by clicking here.

A quick look at the upper air sounding from the Shelby County Airport from last night’s run shows the drier air firmly in place which led to a mostly clear day yesterday. Today will once again be dry and slightly warmer as the two ridges, one to our east and one to our west, basically grab hands across the Gulf Coast area. But that connection will only be short-lived as another eastern US trough begins to develop once again, a pattern we’ve come to see a lot of this summer. A large complex of thunderstorms over southern Missouri/northern Arkansas will be sending clouds across the sky with clouds thickening up overnight. At the same time, the weak frontal boundary seen in the dew point differences between North Alabama and South Alabama should come northward as a weak warm front.

SPC has a small area of slight risk of severe storms over the Dakotas today with a couple of areas, one in Oklahoma and one in South Carolina, where conditions are marginally conducive for a few strong to severe storms. No slight risk area for Day 2.

Beach goers will see a good supply of sunshine today with only isolated showers to be dealt with and highs in the upper 80s. Look for similar conditions on Wednesday.

As the upper trough strengthens, a series of surface lows will march across the Ohio River Valley on Wednesday and Thursday. With increased moisture, this should set the stage here for fairly numerous showers and thunderstorms on Wednesday and Thursday. Temperatures will once again be in the upper 80s Wednesday with the clouds and presence of showers. Looks like we’ll see a sharp drop off in rain chances on Friday as the unsettled weather sags into South Alabama with highs here around 90. We will also need to be mindful of the potential for thunderstorm clusters to develop over the Plains states and move southeastward as the northwesterly flow pattern develops once again. In fact, the GFS hints at one of those MCSs on Sunday.

By Monday and Tuesday, the ridge to the west nudges the trough a little east of us, so temperatures will go up a bit, probably lower 90s, as heights go up a bit. Showers should become very scattered for the start of next week.

But the pattern once again is headed for another fairly deep trough over the eastern US around the 9th of August. If that pattern develops as deeply as the GFS suggests, we will see a cold front passing through the Southeast. But this is into voodoo, so we’ll see how it develops.

Tropics remain quiet except for the concentrated area of cloudiness that was the former Dorian. And in the Central Pacific, Flossie has degraded to a tropical depression as it heads by the Hawaiian Islands.

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…

I will be posting the next Weather Xtreme Video by 8 am or so on Wednesday morning. Enjoy the day and Godspeed.

-Brian-

Category: Alabama's Weather