A Warm Summer Sunday

Mostly clear skies across the state of Alabama this morning with morning lows bottoming out near 70 for most locations in Central Alabama. A surface high pressure area will continue to nose into the Southeast US from the Atlantic Ocean today so I expect to see afternoon highs in the lower 90s. The upper ridge should help to suppress convection, so I only expect to see isolated showers today.

SPC has outlined a slight risk for severe storms for Day 1 across the Upper Midwest area ahead of a front and the upper trough.

Not much change to the overall weather pattern on Monday and Tuesday with an upper ridge extending from the Southeast US to the Southwest US, so we should once again see isolated showers and thunderstorms with highs in the lower half of the 90s each day.

Late Tuesday and into Wednesday and Thursday another relatively strong trough will move across the Great Lakes region with the trough axis aligned along the Lower Mississippi River Valley. This will dampen the ridge aloft and push a front into the late Wednesday and Thursday. It still appears likely that Thursday will be the best day for numerous showers and storms, however, both Wednesday and Friday could be close seconds. With more clouds, a return to a more northwesterly flow aloft, and the potential for more numerous showers and storms, our highs for the end of the week from Thursday into Saturday should be held down somewhat in the upper half of the 80s. So far for 2018, August has not been too bad when it comes to temperatures.

Saturday and Sunday the upper ridge is forecast to push northeastward from the Southwest US into the western Great Lakes. The GFS maintains a closed low over the eastern Great Lakes with a fairly deep trough over the eastern third of the US. Precipitable water values drop below 1.5 inches across the northern half of Alabama, so there is a pretty good chance we won’t see much in the way of showers as moisture is pushed southward into South Alabama and along the Gulf Coast. Highs should be around 90.

Rainfall is expect to be around 1 inch for locations across the northern half of Alabama coming primarily in the Wednesday to early Friday time period.

Looking out into voodoo country, the GFS starts out with a broad trough over the eastern US on August 14th but strengthens the upper ridge by the 18th. That ridge is still centered well to our west, so it will be warm but not overly hot. By the 20th of August the GFS has once again established a broad trough along the East Coast of the US keep us at or slightly below seasonal values for the latter part of August.

Tropics: While tropical storm formation is not expected for the next several days, there is an area of disturbed weather centered about 1000 miles west of the Azores in the Atlantic moving southwestward. This non-tropical low may become better organized during the next few days as it is over relatively warm water, but it remains well out in the Atlantic.

Beach Forecast: Click here to see the AlabamaWx Beach Forecast Center page.

WeatherBrains: Don’t forget you can listen to our weekly 90 minute netcast anytime on the web, or on iTunes. This is the show all about weather featuring many familiar voices, including our meteorologists here at ABC 33/40.

Thanks for tuning into the Weather Xtreme Video. The next Weather Xtreme Video should be posted here Monday morning by James Spann as he returns from a well deserved vacation. Enjoy the day and Godspeed.

-Brian-

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