Cool, Wet Weather

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WET WEDNESDAY: More pre-dawn thunder for Alabama, but this time the severe weather threat is primarily way down south along the Gulf Coast where there is a little surface based instability. A tornado watch remains in effect for Baldwin County, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle until 10:00 a.m. Up this way, storms overnight were elevated, and some of them produced hail prompting a few severe thunderstorm warnings out of the Huntsville NWS office.

The radar shows the big rain mass over South Alabama at 6:00 this morning, but a new batch of rain and storms had developed over West Alabama. It won’t rain all day today, but it could rain at any time, and more elevated thunder is possible. Temperatures have been holding rock steady in the 50s for the past 24 hours, and probably won’t change much today. The GFS temperature forecasts have been horrible over the past week, and they still look way too warm in the short term. We might rise into the low 60s today, but nothing beyond that.

TOMORROW AND FRIDAY: A deep upper trough will move right over us tomorrow, making for a cloudy and very cool day with some light rain at times. Parts of the Tennessee Valley of extreme North Alabama probably won’t get out of the 40s, and the high down this way will be in the 50s. Friday, the upper trough axis moves on to the east, so we have a chance of reaching the low to mid 60s, but the sky will stay mostly cloudy, and a little light rain will remain possible in spots.

WARMER WEEKEND: The weekend still looks great, with the sky becoming sunny on Saturday with temperatures rising to near 70. Sunday will be warmer with mid to upper 70s along with a good supply of sunshine through scattered clouds.

NEXT WEEK: No doubt another good round of rain and storms is likely at some point early week, but confidence in details is not very high as models still have their differences. The GFS shows the main event Monday night, while the ECMWF holds it off until Tuesday. One way or another there will be some pretty decent upper support, and with temperatures expected to rise into the low 80s Monday afternoon, there should be a decent amount of instability to work with. So… we could be dealing with a severe weather issue, but we won’t be able to nail the details until late this week.

Colder air moves in following the storms at mid-week, and we could be in the 30s at daybreak Wednesday. Guidance looks like we generally stay above freezing, but that will be monitored closely for the growers as we get closer. That will most likely be the last threat of a freeze this season.

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I will be speaking at the University of Montevallo today… look for the next Weather Xtreme video here by 3:30 or so. Enjoy the day!