A Hint Of Fall This Morning

An all new edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme video is available in the player below, and on iTunes…

Yeah, I know, we have to get through the rest of July and August, but there sure is a nice touch of fall in the air this morning. Some 5:00 observations…

Fort Payne 55
Haleyville 58
Cullman Airport 59
Anniston 60
Birmingham Airport 65

J.B. will run down a more complete list of lows later this morning.

THE DAYS AHEAD: If you trust the GFS, our weather will be mostly dry through early next week with humidity levels slowly rising through the rest of the week. However, the NAM wants to take a disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico northward, with moist air returning to most of Alabama by Friday.

For the moment, our forecast sides with the drier GFS; we have plenty of time to make adjustments if needed. We will watch satellite trends with that feature in the Northeast Gulf of Mexico. Sometimes “backyard” tropical systems can form on old fronts like that this time of the year when they are draped across the northern Gulf. Sure seems like the heaviest rain will be over the Florida West Coast; places like Tampa, St. Pete, and Fort Myers should get a big soaking in coming days.

WEEKEND PEEK: Enough moisture will be back in here for widely scattered afternoon storms Saturday and Sunday, but for now we will lean toward the drier solution and keep the storms very widely spaced.

TROPICS: The Atlantic basin is coming alive… Bertha is moving away from Bermuda slowly and erratically…

A well organized, low latitude disturbance near 45W has a chance to become a tropical depression today, although it didn’t become any better organized overnight. This one is headed for the Caribbean, and has a good chance to become tropical storm Cristobal. Way too early to determine if this will impact the Gulf of Mexico or the U.S. coastline.

And, another convection flare is seen this morning around 33W; again that is a low latitude system that bears watching.

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. Brian will post notes on the new show shortly…

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I will be speaking at Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Alabama later today… then I will head into the office and the afternoon Weather Xtreme video should be up here by 3:30 or so this afternoon. Enjoy the day!

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