Severe Storms Sunday?

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CHANGES AHEAD: After another beautiful day today, wet weather returns to Alabama over the weekend. Clouds will thicken tonight, and it still looks like showers will enter West Alabama during the day tomorrow. The best chance of rain will be along and west of I-65, and mainly during the afternoon. Then, rain becomes more widespread statewide tomorrow night into Sunday.

SPC has introduced a slight risk of severe weather for all of Alabama on Sunday. At this point, there are more questions than answers, but model instability values have come up, with CAPE values in the 1,500 j/kg range by Sunday afternoon, with 0 to 3 km helicity values well over 300 m2/s2. The big question is the ability of the atmosphere to recover after a big rain mass Saturday night and Sunday morning, along with the possibility of a Gulf Coast MCS that would limit instability as well. If we do have strong storms, most likely they would be in the 2:00 to 8:00 p.m. time frame Sunday. We will keep an eye on things over the weekend.

NEXT WEEK: The strength of the upper trough over the eastern U.S. varies from run to run, but Monday and Tuesday still look relatively cool, with potential for wrap around clouds Monday, and possibly on Tuesday, for the northern half of the state. Wednesday through Friday will be dry and warmer, with temperatures potentially reaching the low 80s by the end of the week. The following weekend (April 25-26) looks warm and dry with a 5880 meter 500 mb ridge nosing in from the Gulf; sure looks like our warmest weekend so far this year.

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This morning I am speaking on the future of the media on the campus of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa… I will be back in the office by early afternoon, and the next edition of the Weather Xtreme video will be posted by 3:30 p.m. Enjoy the day!

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