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METEOROLOGICAL SUMMER BEGINS: Today marks the beginning of the summer season for those of us in the weather business; the summer solstice won’t come until 6:28 a.m. CDT on June 21. For the next three months, you will hear these words often in our forecasts, if not on a daily basis: “hot” “humid” “scattered, mostly afternoon and evening showers and storms”. Weather changes in the summer are slow and often hard to define, and dealing with afternoon convection on a summer afternoon remains one of the great mysteries for weather forecasters across the southern U.S. I know this morning it will rain in spots this afternoon, but it is impossible to tell you exactly who gets the rain, how long the rain lasts, and how much rain will fall. Accordingly, the wording “scattered afternoon and evening showers and storms”.
TODAY THROUGH THURSDAY: The upper low that brought the enhanced coverage of showers and storms over the Memorial Day weekend has lifted out of the region, but in the wake of that feature a very moist environment stays in place, so we will indeed mention the risk of afternoon showers and storms through mid-week. The chance of any one spot getting wet is about one in three, and most of the showers and storms will come in the 1:00 p.m. until 11:00 p.m. time frame. Highs will be mostly in the mid to upper 80s.
FRIDAY AND THE WEEKEND: The models continue to suggest the air aloft will be warmer during these three days, meaning hotter afternoons, and fewer afternoon showers. Highs will rise into the low 90s; the GFS is printing 95 for Birmingham on Sunday, but I am not sure we can get that hot due to the good soil moisture in place. We might see a few afternoon storms over the weekend, but they should be widely spaced.
NEXT WEEK: A nasty 5940 meter 500 mb high shows up over the nation’s mid-section next week, and that will spread across much of the southern U.S. by the end of the week, meaning the hottest weather so far this year. Sure, you can always see an afternoon storm this time of the year, but the widespread rain is not expected.
2010 HURRICANE SEASON BEGINS: All is quiet across the Atlantic basin this morning. But, most of us believe this could be a real rock and roll hurricane season with very warm SSTs across the Atlantic basin and favorable upper air winds. Of course, nobody knows, but we wonder what it will be like in August and September.
WEATHERBRAINS: We will all give our hurricane season forecast on WeatherBrains this week; we will have a special morning time this week, we will roll the show at 9:00 CDT this morning; you can listen live here, and the show will be available on iTunes and the web by midday.
FOLLOW ALONG: Here are our weather team Twitter accounts….
| James Spann | Jason Simpson | Ashley Brand |
| J. B. Elliott | Bill Murray | Brian Peters |
| Dr. Tim Coleman | WeatherBrains Podcast | E-Warn (AL wx watches/warnings) |
Look for the next Weather Xtreme video here by 3:30 or so today… enjoy the day!
