Watching Storms To The Northwest

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THANK YOU for your outpouring of support for my colleague and mentor J.B. Elliott… scroll down for his post on losing his dog “Little Miss Molly” yesterday and the horrible situation surrounding it. J.B. is the “world’s greatest weatherman”… most of you know he is in his upper 70s, and still has a better grasp on operational meteorology and more common sense that all of us here. He loves life and his job, and never complains, even on the days when it should come easy and natural. I know he will review all of the blog comments and emails… his email address is jb.elliott@theweathercompany.com.

Here is a late update from J.B.’s son Steve this morning…

“I’m sure he will call you today but here is the latest. Took him to the ER last night, he has a nasty bruise on his forehead where he fell on his face and hit a rock. His arm is torn up from the fall, his left knee is hurting pretty bad and it’s dealing him fits moving around. He is also hurting in his ribs when he takes a deep breath. CT of his head was good, they X-rayed chest, arm, and knee and all looked good. We got him home around midnight last night. They are both devastated about Molly, I’m afraid he won’t get over this one anytime soon. That crazy dog was everything to him and he feels guilty that he couldn’t do anything to stop it.”

Be sure and listen to this week’s WeatherBrains as we all shared our J.B. stories. The link to the show is just below this post.

THE ALABAMA WEATHER SITUATION: The sky is generally clear across our state this morning, but we are watching with interest the MCS over Missouri and Illinois. This mass of thunderstorms is rolling southeast, and has a chance of impacting our state later today. While we don’t want the damaging winds associated with storms like this, we sure could use the rain. Otherwise, the day will be hot and hazy with a high in the low to mid 90s. The hottest weather stays west of the state over Texas.

REST OF THE WEEK: A weak north to northwest flow aloft will continue, with the core of the heat ridge to the west, so the door will be open for some risk of scattered afternoon storms on a daily basis through Friday. Also, we will have to watch thunderstorm development to the northwest for signs of another MCS that might impact us. Highs hold in the mid 90s through Friday as the long hot spell continues; today will be the 18th day in a row with a high at or over 90 for most Alabama communities.

WEEKEND PEEK: The upper ridge strengthens over the state, and the weather is looking mostly hot and dry Saturday and Sunday. You can never rule out the risk of an afternoon storm with this pattern, but they should be few and far between as the ridge takes over. Highs will be in the mid to upper 90s.

NEXT WEEK AND BEYOND: Guess the most interesting look on the GFS in the medium range comes around June 25 with some kind of tropical wave moving up this way in response to a weakness in the upper ridge. But we all have one word for that… voodoo. See the Weather Xtreme video for more long range ideas.

TROPICS: Quiet as a mouse across the vast Atlantic basin and tropical storm formation is not expected through the week.

AT THE BEACH: Sunny days, fair nights through the weekend with only very isolated storms. Highs on the immediate coast will be in the upper 80s, but inland areas will bake with upper 90s. The sea water temperature at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab is 86 degrees (F) as I write this early this morning.

FOLLOW ALONG: Here are our weather team Twitter accounts….

Look for the next Weather Xtreme video here by 3:30 this afternoon… enjoy the day…

Tags: hot

Category: Alabama's Weather