Warm with Showers

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Football and a late newscast have forced the Weather Xtreme Video to be a tad later than usual this morning. What a great start to the football season with wins for Alabama and Auburn. Florida State does not play their first game until Monday evening, so I know where I will be come 7 pm!

A nice shower dropped a little more than half an inch on my yard yesterday afternoon late and dropped the temperature nearly 20 degrees. Yesterday, the last day of August, was one of the hottest we’ve seen so far this summer. 96 at my weather station and 94 at Birmingham airport. The upper ridge is easing westward just a tad, but with a nice clear start to the day, I expect to see highs once again reach the lower and middle 90s for much of Central Alabama. Scattered hit or miss showers will once again develop with the heat of the afternoon. Like yesterday, I expect the showers to be less numerous across western sections of Central Alabama. Rainfall will be spotty with some spots getting half to once inch while some places stay dry.

An upper trough drops into the picture on Monday and Tuesday. I expect to see highs again reaching the lower 90s both days with showers fairly numerous on Monday with the approach of a weak frontal boundary. That boundary promises to dry out the atmosphere somewhat on Tuesday as the drier air moves into the northern half of Alabama pushing the risk for showers southward. Temperatures will respond some, too, with lows dropping into the 60s on Wednesday and Thursday with highs in the middle 80s. The presence of the boundary on Monday along with good heating could lead to the development of isolated strong to marginally severe storms, however, there is no defined slight risk area defined by SPC.

Moisture remains limited into the end of the week and next weekend, but isolated showers could once again be possible in the heat of the afternoon for Saturday and Sunday.

With a northwesterly flow aloft for much of the upcoming week, we’ll have to remain vigilant for any mesoscale convective systems that might develop off to the northwest of us. The GFS does not show anything specific, but these tend to be small scale features that don’t always show up in the synoptic scale models.

Looking into week 2, the GFS continues to advertise a strong trough around the 11th of September which could push a strong cold front into the Southeast US and bring a nice hint at Fall. But as we saw yesterday, the ridge returns around the 15th but not as strong as we’ve seen the last week or so. Once again, no extreme heat to deal with. And there is even another strong trough coming into the Northwest US with perhaps another potential for cooler weather.

Tropics are still relatively quiet with the two areas, one approaching the Lesser Antilles and the other in the far eastern Atlantic, being watched. Currently no tropical storm formation is likely to occur in the next 2 to 5 days.

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James Spann will be back with the next edition of the Weather Xtreme Video first thing on Monday morning. Monday is Labor Day so he may be on a one-a-day schedule. You can catch the latest weather forecast on ABC 3340 at 5 and 10 pm this evening. Enjoy your day and Godspeed.

-Brian-

Category: Alabama's Weather