Moist Air Still In Place; Watching Alex

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MOIST, UNSTABLE AIR: Showers and storms will form again later today during the peak of the daytime heating process as moist air continues to hang over Alabama. The chance of any one spot getting wet today is about one in three, and like recent days the stronger storms will be capable of producing lots of lightning, some hail, and strong winds.

TOMORROW AND WEDNESDAY: Expect a good chance of showers and storms on these days with a surface front approaching from the north, and an upper trough forming over the eastern third of the nation. Highs should be in the 88 to 92 degree range with the sky occasionally cloudy and occasional showers and thunderstorms. As usual, the best chance of getting wet will come during the afternoon and evening hours, but we can’t rule out some risk of a late night or morning shower as well.

THURSDAY AND FRIDAY: The GFS and the ECMWF suggest we will be in dry, continental air on these days. That means lots of sunshine, lower humidity, and cooler nights; highs should be only in the upper 80s. Enjoy it if it happens; we don’t get this type of airmass into Alabama that often during the summer.

WEEKEND PEEK: Moisture levels begin to return, and we will bring back some risk of a shower or storm over the weekend, but the forecast has plenty of uncertainty due to model variations with Alex and what happens once the storm is inland. The GFS hints that Sunday would be the day with the better chance of showers and thunderstorms; see the Weather Xtreme video for details.

ALEX: The first tropical storm of the season should become a hurricane later today, tonight, or tomorrow over the warm water of the Southwest Gulf of Mexico. NHC guidance takes the system into the Mexican coast, south of Brownsville, Texas Thursday morning, but there still remains a fair amount of spread in model output, with some as far north as the Texas coast. Certainly looks like our friends down on South Padre Island will be impacted by Alex, with some potential for flooding across the lower Rio Grande Valley later this week. In terms of intensity, most dynamic models suggest Alex will be a category one hurricane at the time of landfall, although a couple of them bring it up to category two status. The good news is that major hurricanes are relatively rare this early in the season.

The ECMWF takes Alex into Mexico and the system falls apart there, but the GFS brings the remnant circulation up through East Texas, and around the Arkansas/Oklahoma border by the weekend. The GFS solution could mean an enhanced moisture flow for Alabama this weekend, while the ECMWF idea would keep us relatively dry Saturday and Sunday. We will have much better clarity on this later in the week.

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