Nicer Day Ahead in Central Alabama

After a rather raw day on Saturday, the weather is looking up today. We begin the day with low clouds as seen in the satellite image this morning, but those should move southward and dissipate by mid to late morning. Highs today with some sunshine should climb into the lower 60s.

A fast moving short wave trough will pass by to our north overnight, so we should see clouds again with small chances for showers – mainly in the 20 to 30 percent range. But Monday promises to improve with a mix of sun and clouds and highs recovering into the lower 70s.

A slightly stronger short wave enters the picture on Tuesday, but that feature will have little to work with since the atmosphere will be quite dry as precipitable water values remain very low with values well below 1 inch. The highs Tuesday should again reach the 70s.

Ridging becomes the primary feature in the upper air pattern for us for Wednesday and Thursday, so we should see highs in the 70s each day. But by Friday our attention is drawn to a strong short wave stretching from a closed low over eastern South Dakota into the Texas Panhandle. The closed low moves to eastern Iowa on Saturday. At the surface, a surface low moves from eastern South Dakota to the vicinity of Lake Michigan with a cold front arcing from the low across the Ohio River Valley into the Southeast US. The SPC has outlooked a 15 percent area for severe weather to our west over Arkansas and Northeast Texas for Day 6.

The dynamics for this system seem to be too far north for any significant severe weather threat in our area. Instability values appear reasonable to expect to hear some thunder, but the EHI project for next Saturday appear to remain below 1. I certainly think we need to keep a close eye on this feature to see how it is handled in future model runs, but right now it does not seem to be a concern.

As we end the seven day forecast cycle, the GFS is projecting a deep trough over the eastern US by Monday, April 16th. If the GFS is correct on this feature, we could be facing another round of very cold weather with lows Monday morning dipping into the middle and upper 30s across much of Alabama. It’s a long way out, but interesting to note that the ECMWF is about 10 degrees warmer. We’ll see.

Continuing into voodoo country, the pattern remains very active with a series of upper air disturbances riding through the flow about every 2 to 3 days.

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I had a great time chatting with folks and their dogs at the Mutt Strut event yesterday morning at Sloss Furnace. The weather cooperated by pushing the rain out of the area, but the temperatures were a trifle raw remaining mainly in the lower half of the 50s. I’m excited to have been invited to say a few words at the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the April 8, 1998, tornado in western Jefferson County at Edgewater United Methodist Church at 10:30. I believe the event is open to everyone if you want to drop by. James Spann will be back with the next edition of the Weather Xtreme Video first thing on Monday. Have a great day and Godspeed.

-Brian-

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