Severe Weather Possible Today and Tonight in Alabama

It’s a complex and complicated forecast trying to figure out when and where the storms are going to be across North and Central Alabama today, tonight, and Monday.

The SPC has an enhanced risk on their Day One Convective Outlook Chart for today and tonight. This enhanced risk (level 3 of 5) extends from eastern Indiana and western Ohio southward through Kentucky, western Tennessee, and into much of Arkansas. This enhanced region touches the northwestern corner of Alabama. This large enhanced area really incorporates two regions and periods of severe weather over the next 18 hours. Let’s dig into them.

Right now, there is a large area of rain and storms from south of Cincinnati to Frankfort and Lexington KY then southward into the Cumberland Plateau of Middle Tennessee. This activity is pushing southeast and its western flank will reach the Alabama/Tennessee border around noon. Of course, this is going into the peak h eating of a hot day and will allow the storms to grown more intense as they push south and southeast. Between 2 and 8 p.m. these storms will push southward over the northern and central portions of Alabama. Damaging wind gusts and some hail are possible with the stronger storms.

The most dangerous severe weather today will be from southern Michigan through Indiana and Ohio and into Kentucky where supercells may develop with tornadoes and large hail as well as damaging wind gusts as the storms grow upscale tonight into an MCS or mesoscale convection system. This activity will be ahead of a cold front that is going to be pushing southeastward today and tonight, reaching Alabama early Monday and slowly pushing southward over the next two days. Along the western side of the front, to our northwest, storms will begin to fire around 2 p.m. over northwestern Arkansas.

This activity will push south and southeastward in an arc across southern Arkansas and northern Mississippi. It should be approaching Alabama’s western border by 8-9 p.m. and it will slide southeastward over our southwestern counties, like Pickens, Sumter, Tuscaloosa, Greene, and Hale and points southeastward.

These storms could be severe with damaging and hail. They should be out of our area and into South Alabama by 1 a.m.

We have thought at times that there might be a third wave of thunderstorms on Monday, but that looks unlikely now.

Skies are mostly sunny across Alabama at this hour, with some slowly building clouds over the northern part of the state, closer to the activity over Tennessee. Temperatures are already in the 80s and will be heading into the lower 90s and upper 80s depending on clouds and rainfall from the first wave of storms this afternoon. Skies should stay mostly sunny until the storms move in, and then widespread cloudy skies are expected overnight, when lows will be in the middle and upper 60s. Monday may start out kind of cloudy over central sections, but those clouds should move out during the day, leaving sunshine and a brisk westerly wind at times behind the cold front. Highs will be in the upper 80s and lower 90s. Monday night lows will be in the upper 60s to near 70F. Rain chances on Monday should be limited to South Alabama with only a small chance of an isolated storm over northern and Central sections.

The ridge will try to build eastward into Alabama and the Deep South, but a bear of an upper trough will begin to squash the ridge by late in the week and into the weekend. Still the ridge should mostly protect us from storms Tuesday and Wednesday with just a chance that a disturbance riding around the eastern side could brush up against us with a round of storms. Temperatures will soar into the middle 90s Tuesday and Wednesday and upper 90s to near 100F Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. The extreme heat will probably allow a few showers and storms to develop Thursday and Friday under the weakening ridge.

Category: Alabama's Weather, ALL POSTS, Severe Weather