Showers and Storms To Our Northwest

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Showers and thunderstorms are occurring across eastern Arkansas, western Tennessee and northern Mississippi this morning. It is storming on Beale Street in Memphis at 10 a.m.

A severe thunderstorm watch is in effect for this region. It comes right up to Colbert and Lauderdale counties in Northwest Alabama, but does not include any part of our state. The biggest threat from the storms is hail. Even the threat of damaging winds is low. The tornado threat is very low.

The SPC still brings the slight risk severe weather outlook for the day into the Northwest corner of Alabama. A moderate risk extends from eastern Oklahoma through Springfield MO to St. Louis and Chicago into Wisconsin.

There are a couple of severe thunderstorm warnings in effect in Arkansas, around Hot Springs.

All of this activity is moving east northeast. Some of it will clip the Northwest corner of Alabama later, but the rest of Central Alabama continues to be protected by persistent high pressure.

It was already 83F at Birmingham at 10 a.m. wit a good supply of sunshine. That’s a full 7 degrees ahead of the same time yesterday…when it was mostly cloudy in Birmingham.

Clouds are thick from Tuscaloosa to near Montgomery and south for about 50 miles, but this band of cloudiness is eroding from the south. It was only 74F at Tuscaloosa and 70F at Montgomery. The visibility at Montgomery’s Dannelly Field was only a quarter of a mile in dense fog at 9 a.m.

Highs will top out in the lower 90s with plenty of humidity across much of the area.

Can’t rule out an isolated storm today, but the chance is very small for us here in Central Alabama.

Lots of anxiety about potential severe weather later this week. We could see strong to severe storms on Thursday, perhaps as early as Wednesday night, but the main threat will be hail. We just will not see much heliciity, or spin in the atmosphere, which is a necessary ingredient for tornadoes. There could be damaging wind gusts. There are now signs that we could see thunderstorms producing hail on Saturday as an upper low develops over our area as well. But overall, any severe weather this week will be limited and relatively minot.

Category: Alabama's Weather