Storms Today; Drier into Start of Week

Clouds cover about the northern two-thirds of Alabama this morning thanks to a couple of large clusters of thunderstorms overnight that have diminished this morning. One of those entered the northwest corner of Alabama around 4 am. Temperatures were mild with lows mainly around the 70-degree mark. Humidity levels remained high with most locations reporting dew points in the lower 70s.

The front should enter the northwest corner of the state shortly and move steadily southeastward. This will help to produce scattered showers and thunderstorms with the SPC outlining a marginal risk for nearly all of Alabama and a pretty good chunk of the Southeast US. Highs today should top out in the middle and upper 80s.

Unfortunately with the scattered nature of showers and storms today not everyone will get wet. QPF suggests amounts generally at a quarter of an inch or less, but I really expect to see some locations where heavier storms occur to record amounts of a half inch.

An upper level trough over the Great Lakes will dig into the area along the East Coast of the US Monday and be reinforced by Tuesday and Wednesday. This keeps Alabama out of any extreme heat and with the front moving to the Gulf Coast, we should see much lower humidity Monday and Tuesday. In fact, with dew points in the 50s we may well see some spots dip into the 50s for lows on especially on Tuesday and Wednesday morning. MOS guidance for Birmingham was printing out 61 for Tuesday morning.

With a northwesterly flow in place for Monday through Thursday, we’ll have to maintain a watchful eye for the development of any thunderstorm clusters (MCSs) that might develop well to the northwest of Central Alabama and move southeastward. The GFS suggests we might see some short waves moving through the flow that could produce these clusters. Otherwise it should be dry. High temperatures will gradually work their way upward into the lower 90s for the last part of the week ahead.

By the end of the week, a weakness shows up in the upper air pattern that could bring a return to showers and storms driven primarily by the heat of the day for Alabama, but right now the probability for rain is rather low – 20 percent or less.

Looking out into voodoo country, the upper air pattern sees the ridge over the Southwest US bulge northeastward into the eastern Great Lakes region. But a strong upper trough by June 14th pushes that ridge back into the Southwest US. The upper trough moves eastward holding the ridge at bay and keeping us our of the excessive heat through June 17th.

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I will be filling in for Charles Daniel this evening, so you can catch the latest forecast at 5 and 10 pm today. James Spann returns on Monday morning with the next edition of the Weather Xtreme Video. Enjoy the day and Godspeed.

-Brian-

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