Scattered thunderstorms continue mostly over the north third of Alabama, roughly from the greater Birmingham area northward. Just before 3 o’clock, one of the stronger storms was near Aldridge in Winston County. It may be strong enough to produce wind gusts as high as 45 mph and frequent lightning. Another moderate to strong storm, a smaller one, was passing just west of Birmingham and it will move up US-78 slowly.
Let us suggest that if you have a nice thunderstorm developing near where you are for the remainder of this afternoon, go ahead and assume that it could produce some strong winds and very scary lightning and intense rainfall for a time. These storms peak, but they don’t stay at their maximum very long.
When storms like that develop and they are not quite severe, the National Weather Service issues what they call a Significant Weather Alert. Those often come in rapid succession. Instead of us updating every time one of those is issued, we instead will try to keep you posted on where the strongest storms are and which way they are moving and you can assume some of those will kick up the high wind and dangerous lightning.
Besides that stronger storm now in North Winston County, some of the other more significant storms were located:
* over NW Jackson County near the Tennessee border about 15 miles NW of Scottsboro
* over South DeKalb County, south and SW of Ft. Payne
* over the north tip of Blount County 15 miles or so north of Oneonta
We will watch them closely. Little or no time to play with my dog, but thunderstorms take priority over puppies–maybe not coffee. (Just teasing folks.)
