Moderate To Heavy Rain Continues, But Rain Is Ending In Northwest Alabama

Moderate to heavy rainfall continues to fall across North and Central Alabama as we are making the run-up to the 8:00 pm hour on this last Thursday of 2018. The heaviest band has set up over the eastern half of the area stretching from Jacksonville to Sylacauga to Montgomery to Fort Deposit. At this point, there is no lightning being picked up over the northern 3/4s of the area, with lightning occurring with the heavy rain over the southern portions of Central Alabama. The good news is that rain has started to come to an end for the northwestern corner of the state.

We currently have an Areal Flood Warning for Fayette, Jefferson, Tuscaloosa, and Walker counties until 9:00 pm tonight. We also have Areal Flood Advisories in effect for Fayette, Lamar, Marion, Pickens, Winston until 8:45 pm tonight, along with Fayette, Greene, Hale, Lamar, Marengo, Marion, Pickens, Sumter, Tuscaloosa, Walker, and Winston counties until 9:45 pm tonight.

We also have a Wind Advisory in effect until 12:00 am Friday for all of North Alabama and most of Central Alabama. Winds could gust as high as 35 MPH at times throughout the rest of the evening and into the late night hours.

NWS Huntsville continues a Flash Flood Watch for Colbert, Cullman, DeKalb, Franklin, Jackson, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limestone, Madison, Marshall, and Morgan counties until 9:00 am CST Friday.

NWS Birmingham continues a Flash Flood Watch for Autauga, Bibb, Blount, Calhoun, Chambers, Cherokee, Chilton, Clay, Cleburne, Coosa, Dallas, Elmore, Etowah, Fayette, Greene, Hale, Jefferson, Lamar, Lee, Lowndes, Macon, Marengo, Marion, Montgomery, Perry, Pickens, Randolph, Shelby, St. Clair, Sumter, Talladega, Tallapoosa, Tuscaloosa, Walker, and Winston counties until 6:00 pm CST Friday.

Nearly all of Central Alabama has been removed from the Marginal Risk of severe storms throughout the remainder of tonight and into the early morning hours on Friday. Only the extreme southern parts of Marengo County remains in the risk area.

The Day 2 Severe Weather Outlook has not changed throughout the day as SPC continues to keep the east and southern parts of the area in a Marginal Risk through the day on Friday.

Looking at the latest full run of the HRRR, instability at the surface continues to be confined to the southern parts of Central Alabama and down into South Alabama. We do have a very small amount make it up as far north as southern Jefferson and northern Shelby counties but creeps back down southward through the overnight and early morning hours on Friday. As daytime heating occurs on late Friday morning, that instability starts to creep back northward. This CAPE animation is valid from 8:00 pm tonight to 11:00 am Friday.

We’ll have a decent amount of helicity in place, but with the lack of surface-based instability, the risk for severe storms is very small through the rest of tonight and through the day tomorrow. Significant Tornado Parameter values stay at or below 1.0 throughout the entire event.

So any threat of severe storms throughout the event will come from isolated damaging wind gusts and a very, very small chance of a brief spin-up tornado. So, as I mentioned earlier, severe storms will be unlikely as the possibility for those occurring is very small.

If any breaking weather news occurs, we have it on the AlabamaWx Weather Blog. Stay updated.

Category: Alabama's Weather, ALL POSTS