Potential For Strong To Severe Storms Today, Not A Bad Sunday To End The Weekend

The Storm Prediction Center has much of Central Alabama in a Marginal Risk for severe storms throughout the day today with the exception of the eastern-most counties along the AL/GA state line.

A Wind Advisory goes into effect later this morning from 10:00 am until 5:00 pm this evening for nearly all of Central Alabama with the exception of a few counties in the southeastern corner. Montgomery, Macon, Bullock, Lee, Russell, Pike, and Barbour counties were not included in the advisory. We could see winds averaging 10-20 MPH throughout the advisory area with gusts up to 40 MPH possible.

Same story for Colbert, Cullman, DeKalb, Franklin, Jackson, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limestone, Madison, Marshall, and Morgan counties in North Alabama.

A Flash Flood Watch continues until 10:00 am this morning for Fayette, Greene, Hale, Lamar, Marengo, Marion, Pickens, Sumter, Tuscaloosa, Walker, and Winston counties in Central Alabama… and for Colbert, Franklin, Lauderdale, and Lawrence counties in North Alabama.

TODAY
So for today, a strong cold front will begin to work its way through Central Alabama. Winds will start to pick up from west to east later this morning as the cold front approaches and move into the western parts of the area in the 10-11 am time frame. The front will move through and will be in the central parts of the area by the 4-6 pm time frame. It will be exiting the state right at or just after 10 pm tonight.

Along and just ahead of the front is where we could see some stronger to marginally severe storms with isolated damaging wind gusts up to 60 MPH and the potential for a brief tornado or two. Timing on the potential for strong to severe storms will be from 10 am to 3 pm for the western-third of the area, 1-6 pm for the central-third, and 4-10 pm for the eastern-third.

The good news is that instability will be very limited and mid-level lapse rates will be very low. The bad news is that we’ll have plenty of shear that could get these storms along the front to start spinning that could lead to the gusty winds and a brief tornado.

Rainfall amounts today across the area look to be well less than what we saw on Friday. Forecast amounts from the WPC show mostly 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch for much of the area. Amounts will be less in the southeastern corner of the area, totalling out around or just over 1/4 inch.

Rain will be out of the area before midnight and it should be dry during the overnight hours. Today’s highs will be in the lower 70s to right at 80 degrees across the area from northwest to southeast.

SUNDAY
Sunday will start off mainly cloudy across the area but some of those clouds will dissipate, leaving us partly cloudy by the end of the afternoon hours. We’ll be dry with highs in the upper 60s to the mid-70s.

MONDAY
Nice weather on Monday as we’ll have partly to mostly clear skies. Highs will top out in the mid to upper 70s for most across the area.

TUESDAY
The cold front that works through the area today will actually start to retrograde back in our general direction on Tuesday and could bring a chance of showers mainly to the southeastern parts of Central Alabama. As of now, we’ll go with the possibility of a few showers south of the I-59 corridor while it will be dry north of that. Highs will be in the mid to upper 70s.

WEDNESDAY
Another cold front will be approaching the area from the west that will advect Gulf moisture out ahead of it on Wednesday. This will bring another good shot of beneficial rain to the area as we could see totals in the 1-2 inch range across the area. We could have some thunder, but instability looks to weak for severe storms at this point. Highs will be in the upper 60s to the upper 70s.

THURDSDAY
The cold front will finally work through the area on Halloween. The bad news is that rain continues to look likely during a good part of the daytime. The good news is that rain should begin tapering off from west to east during the late afternoon through the evening hours. There may be some lingering raindrops for Trick-or-Treat time, but they should be light in nature by this time. Highs will be in the lower 60s to the lower 70s. Temperatures at 7 pm will be in the mid-50s to the lower 60s. Rainfall amounts look to be in the 1/2 to 1 inch range across the area.

FRIDAY
Great weather returns for Friday and the first day of November. We’ll have plenty of sunshine with highs topping out in the upper 50s to the mid-60s. Now that is more like fall weather in Central Alabama.

THE TROPICS
We only have one system on the board and that is Tropical Storm Pablo which is located well out in the eastern Atlantic. It will cross over the Azores today as it starts to take a turn to the north. It should become post-tropical by Sunday evening. The rest of the Atlantic Basin is quiet for now.

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