Rain Before The Weekend Arrives

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Another beautiful day is ahead today… a sunny sky with a high in the mid 70s. Just where we should be on April 17.

TO THE WEST: An upper trough is moving out of the Rockies, and that will bring our next chance of rain to Alabama. I still think the daytime hours tomorrow will be dry, with a partly sunny sky and a high in the mid 70s. We will continue to forecast the main window for showers and storms from about 6:00 p.m. tomorrow through 6:00 a.m. Saturday. There is very little surface based instability, which hopefully will mean no major severe weather threat. SPC has a slight risk of severe storms late tomorrow over Southeast Louisiana and South Mississippi, but no formal risk for this part of Alabama.

We do note that 0 to 1 km helicity values are rather high, so we will still pay close attention to radar. Rain totals of one-half to three-quarter of an inch seem likely.

We also can’t ignore the NAM, which tends to be slower with the system and holds rain longer into Saturday. But, for now we will indicate the rain ending early in the day Saturday, with the sky becoming partly sunny by afternoon. Sunday looks very nice with a good supply of sunshine and a high around 80.

NEXT WEEK: The week looks warm and humid. I guess a few isolated showers might show up Monday and Tuesday, but most communities will be dry with an upper ridge in place. We should be up in the low 80s on these days.

A strong upper trough will move northward into Canada, and the trailing front will bring a good chance of showers and storms to Alabama by Wednesday night and Thursday. As the front becomes parallel to the upper air winds, there is a good chance the front just stalls, meaning periods of rain on into Friday, and possibly Saturday (April 26).

VOODOO COUNTRY: The 00Z run of the GFS gives us a different look into late April; it now shows a strong upper trough and a stormy look on April 30-May 1. Very little run to run consistency in the 7 to 16 day time frame, making for low confidence in any solution out there.

WEATHER BRAINS: Don’t forget you can listen to our weekly 30 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. You can even listen here on the blog; look for the player on the top left.

I will be down in Northport this morning speaking to the kids at Matthews Elementary… I will be back in the office by early afternoon and the next Weather Xtreme video will be posted here by 3:30. Enjoy the day!

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