Hotter Afternoons Ahead

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As usual, thanks to Brian Peters, J.B. Elliott, Bill Murray, Ashley Brand, and Jason Simpson for covering my duties last week while I was on vacation. It was a needed week for the voice to heal; it has been a long year! I will take another week before school starts in late July or early August. Summers are very short now with school starting so early.

MORE STORMS? Forecasting thunderstorms in the summer in Alabama is difficult, if not impossible, more than a few hours in advance. We often beat our chests and tell people about our high accuracy rates in forecasting, but this is a time of the year when computer models aren’t much help, and we can’t tell you about big thunderstorm masses until they are looking us in the eyes on radar. That was obvious to me last week as I was on the other side, trying to get in youth baseball games and dodging storms. Having said that… we still have a northwest flow aloft over the northern half of Alabama, leaving the door open for another MCS later this afternoon or early tonight. But, there is nothing on radar to the immediate northwest, meaning the morning should be dry. The sun will break out once the morning fog burns off, and we should be close to 90 by early afternoon.

If the storms over Missouri don’t translate into North Alabama later today as an organized thunderstorm complex, we should see scattered thunderstorms developing by mid-afternoon with surface based CAPE values rising over 2,000 j/kg by then. You have to figure one way or another, there will be storms around on the radar this afternoon. And, like recent days, they could pack a punch. SPC has the northern third of Alabama in a slight risk of severe weather for this afternoon.

THE REST OF THE WEEK: This is summer, you know, and there is always some risk of an afternoon storm somewhere, but the upper ridge should begin to take over by Wednesday and Thursday; on those days looks like we could see mid 90s with only a small risk of any one neighborhood seeing a shower or thunderstorm. A strong short wave north of the state should beat the ridge down a bit Friday, with some risk of scattered storms increasing during the afternoon and evening hours.

WEEKEND PEEK: That short wave north of the state will drive a surface boundary down this way for the weekend as the upper ridge shifts westward. That should mean heat levels coming down a bit, and some risk of scattered showers and storms both Saturday and Sunday. Afternoon highs should be close to 90.

VOODOO LAND: Nothing too exciting shows up during the last week of June; the upper ridge is in place and that should mean rather routine late June weather, with hot and muggy days with some risk of afternoon storms in scattered spots. No sign of any tropical trouble. But, like I mentioned, forecasting summer storms is very difficult 12 hours in advance, and just about impossible more than 7 days in advance!

WEATHER BRAINS: Don’t forget you can listen to our weekly 30 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. You can even listen here on the blog; look for the player on the top left. We will record this week’s show tonight; it should be posted around 10:30 or so.

TWITTER: Don’t forget, you can follow our news and weather updates from ABC 33/40 on Twitter here. And, my personal Twitter feed is here if you want to keep up with my adventures in life. Twitter is a short messaging service you can receive via the web, cell phone, or IM.

This morning I will be speaking at the AMSTI (Alabama Math Science Technology Initiative) Institute at Hayden High School in Blount County; I will have the afternoon Weather Xtreme video up by 3:30 or so. Enjoy the day!

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