Sun, Heat, And A Few Storms

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CLASSIC SUMMER MIX: Today looks like a pretty routine mid-summer day for Alabama. Morning sunshine; a hot afternoon with a high in the 90s, and scattered thunderstorms firing up during the heat of the day. Most communities will see a high in the mid 90s, and the chance of any one spot getting wet is about one in three.

Of course, we have to keep an eye on the “MCS of the morning”, which is over Missouri. This one should slide a little north and east of us, but these things are always tricky to deal with. Models don’t handle them well, and even if they miss us, they will lay down an outflow boundary which can serve as a focus for new convective initiation.

SURFACE FRONT ARRIVES TOMORROW: Notice we never call them “cold fronts” in summer, but a surface boundary will move into Alabama tomorrow, which should bring scattered to numerous showers and storms to the state by the afternoon hours. SPC has much of North Alabama in a standard “slight risk” of severe storms, and the main threat will come from damaging straight wind winds with downed trees and power lines, along with some hail. Remember, tornadoes are extremely rare in summer in Alabama.

WEDNESDAY THROUGH FRIDAY: Drier air slips into the northern half of Alabama on Wednesday, with the best chance of storms shifting down into the southern half of Alabama. Sure looks like these three days will be mostly dry for North Alabama. We are pretty uncomfortable completely leaving out some risk of an afternoon storm, but they will be few and far between with lots of sunshine and lower humidity levels. Highs stay mostly in the mid 90s, but with the lower humidity it will be a little more tolerable.

FOURTH OF JULY HOLIDAY WEEKEND: Moisture levels begin to creep up a bit over the long weekend, so the chance of “scattered, mostly afternoon and evening showers and thunderstorms” will have to be included in the forecast, but that is pretty much a standard part of a mid-summer forecast in Alabama. Each day should feature a pretty decent amount of sunshine, and the GFS suggests the highest coverage of showers and storms will come on Monday, July 4. Of course, we all know our skill in forecasting placement and coverage of afternoon storms in Alabama is marginal at best, and we sure won’t try to be too specific this far in advance. Afternoon highs should be in the low to mid 90s, as the core of the really serious heat remains west of Alabama.

TROPICS: A weak disturbance near the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico has some chance of slow development this week; if anything forms there more that likely it will move west/northwest, toward the Mexican Gulf Coast. See the Weather Xtreme video for details.

GULF COAST WEATHER: Very typical summer weather is expected from Panama City west to Gulf Shores through the holiday weekend. About 7 to 9 hours of sunshine each day with only widely scattered showers and thunderstorms. Highs on the immediate coast will be around 90, and the sea water temperature this morning at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab is 87.5 degrees (F). The big wildfire at Gulf Shores State Park seems to be burning itself out this morning, thankfully.

WEATHER BRAINS: Don’t forget you can listen to our weekly 90 minute netcast anytime on the web, or on iTunes. This is the show all about weather featuring many familiar voices, including our meteorologists here at ABC 33/40. Dr. Greg Forbes from the Weather Channel will be our guest tonight; we will record at 8:30 p.m. CDT as usual, and the show will be posted to iTunes and the web by midnight.

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

I will be speaking to small business owners this afternoon at a forum hosted by the Birmingham Business Alliance… as you might expect my topic is severe weather safety. Look for the next Weather Xtreme video here by 3:30 or so this afternoon. Enjoy the day!

Tags: storms, sun

Category: Alabama's Weather