Wet Sunday Ahead

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Clouds blanket much of the Southeast US this morning which sure helped to keep temperatures up overnight. In fact, most locations across Central Alabama saw lows this morning in the 50s which is about 10 to 15 degrees above our seasonal lows for this time of year. With dew points in the 40s, humidity levels were already fairly high with relative humidities running around 80 percent. A few sprinkles occurred overnight especially along and north of the Interstate 20 corridor, but most locations saw only a few hundredths of an inch of rain at the most.

It will be cloudy and mild today as a storm system gathers strength off to our west and moves toward the east Sunday. Whatever you want to do this weekend, keep in mind it is going to be pretty wet for Sunday and into early Monday morning. Rain should not be a significant problem today, but you could see some sprinkles with the cloudiness in place.

An upper level trough will dig into the North Central Gulf on Monday as a surface low moves out of Texas and across the Southeast US Sunday and Monday. This should bring a soaker of a day to much of Alabama on Sunday and into early Monday with rainfall amounts of 1 to 2 inches for much of Central Alabama. We’ll need to watch the potential for severe storms, too. Right now the rather complex upper level situation suggests the greatest threat for severe storms today to be over Southeast Texas and much of Louisiana. That risk moves eastward to the Florida Panhandle on Sunday and into early Monday (Day 2). The upper trough moves along the Gulf Coast Sunday and Monday so the greatest threat of severe thunderstorms should be along the Gulf Coast, but with the surface low positioned further north, we’ll need to watch how much northward progress the strongest instability will make. For now, though, it does look like we could hear some thunder Sunday but any strong to severe storms should be south of Central Alabama.

The surface low weakens as does the upper trough moving across Georgia into Tuesday, so the weather should be moving east of us as we dry out on Monday. But another trough will be coming into the Central Plains quickly behind this first system bringing more cold air to the North Central US Tuesday and Wednesday. With high pressure settling into the Lower Mississippi River Valley on Wednesday, we should see good weather for the middle and latter part of the week ahead. In the absence of any significant trough over the eastern US, we should see temperatures pretty close to seasonal values with lows in the 40s and highs in the 60s and lower 70s.

Another quick moving short wave will move out of the northern Rockies on Friday and into the Great Lakes area on Saturday. This is expected to bring another storm system across the Great Lakes area with a cold front trailing into the Southeast on Saturday. This would make for a good possibility of showers for the start of next weekend, but this is verging into voodoo country.

Looking out into Week 2 or voodoo country the pattern remains fairly active with a nice trough over the eastern US around the 25th and another trough around the 29th. Neither of these appears likely to produce any kind of severe weather event for Central Alabama, but you know how the long range projections can change in future model runs.

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Friday was a busy day starting out with judging the Iron Chef chili cook off in Brookwood at Black Warrior Methane (BWM) Corporation at noon. Five teams prepared their best chili recipes challenging the judges’ culinary expertise. It was wonderful to see how much BWM values their employees with the safe room that has been installed there that will house 80 employees in the event of a tornado. A tip of the hat to the management at BWM for showing their support in keeping employees safe at work. Then I had a wonderful time last night emceeing the Teacher Talent Show at Valley Intermediate School. The place was packed with students and parents who came to support the PTO in their effort to raise funds for school supplies and activities. And the teachers were quite creative in their various talents and performances. I plan to have the next Weather Xtreme Video posted by 8 am or so on Sunday morning. Enoy the day and Godspeed.

-Brian-

Category: Alabama's Weather