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Looks like the northern half of Alabama will remain dry through Friday, although some model madness begins to creep into the weekend forecast.
SHORT TERM: Mostly sunny warm days, and fair pleasant nights will continue through Thursday. Highs in the 80s, lows mostly in the 60s (with some 50s across the cooler valleys). Pretty straight forward forecast.
FRIDAY THROUGH SUNDAY: The Canadian GEM is the most interesting model, but an outlier. It develops a tropical storm in the Atlantic just below Jacksonville, Florida, and moves it to the west/northwest right into Alabama over the weekend. If this solution is correct, we could have soaking rain statewide on Saturday and possibly on Sunday as well. But, we don’t buy into that solution.
The GFS seems more reasonable; it develops a tropical system in the Northeast Gulf of Mexico; then moving it to the west, with a landfall along the southern coast of Texas around South Padre Island late in the weekend on Sunday. This would mean a continuation of mostly dry weather for North Alabama into Saturday, with the deeper moisture confined to the southern quarter of the state. A few showers could develop around here on Sunday as moisture moves northward.
Anytime a tropical system is involved, of course, things can change in a hurry. But for now, I like the GFS solution on the system. Our friends on the Texas coast will really have to watch this; that water is warm in the Gulf, and with a decent upper air wind pattern some rapid strengthening will be possible (remember Humberto?).
LONG RANGE: No sign of any intrusion of cool air into the Deep South into the first few days of October, looks like temperatures for the next 15 days will be a little above normal. The tropics look very active; the 12Z GFS develops a very mean looking hurricane in the Atlantic, east of Florida, in the October 1-3 time frame, but that is all voodoo at this point.
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