A roundup of Monday morning lows across Alabama. Check at the end of this list for the lows from the ABC 33/40 Sky Cams and a note about the huge temperature inversion early this morning:
18 at Fort Payne Airport
19 at Cullman Airport, West Hueytown and Munford
21 at Huntsville, Pinson, Tuscaloosa, Anniston, Meridianville, Alabaster (Navajo Pines)
22 in Decatur, Muscle Shoals, Desoto State park
23 at Troy and Montgomery
24 in Bankhead National Forest
25 in Auburn and Birmingham
26 at Shelby County Airport (NWS)
27 at Selma
28 at Albertville and Mobile
29 at Dothan
FROM ABC33/40 SKY CAMS
23 at Jasper
26 at Hamilton and Cullman
27 at Clanton
28 at Inverness
29 at Demopolis
31 at Gadsden and Tuscaloosa
33 atop Mt. Cheaha
42 at Gulf Shores
TEMPERATURE INVERSIONS
* Big jump in temperature just off the surface this morning. At Shelby County Airport it was 26 at the surface but the 6 am upper sounding found about 37 degrees at about 8,000 feet. Normally it gets colder aloft at about the rate of 3.5 to 4 degrees per thousand feet.
* Low was 19 in Munford with moderate to heavy frost while, not far away atop Mt. Cheaha, it did not even get down to freezing. The 33 low was 14 degrees warmer than Munford!
* At Tuscaloosa Airport it was 21 compared to 31 at the Tuscaloosa Sky Cam atop the County Courthouse. (Just a few miles away)
* 25 at Birmingham Airport was 11 degrees colder than the Birmingham Sky Cam atop the Daniel Building downtown. They had 36.
VERY STABLE ATMOSPHERE
The Lifted Index at Birmingham NWS (Shelby County Airport) this morning was 24. That index is a measure of how stable, or unstable, the air is. We don’t normally get concerned about severe weather until it gets close to zero. When it gets to -4, we get more and more concerned. However, the lifted index is just one of a number of values we have to look at concerning severe weather.
