Rather brisk winds are blowing across the state tonight. The wind will be shifting to the west and NW after midnight and early tomorrow morning as a cold front comes through.
A Lake Wind Advisory is in effect. The winds will be 25 to 30 mph with gusts to around 35 even with no thunderstorms involved. In some of the higher elevations, you might need to hold on to your steering wheel a little better.
Temperatures across North and Central Alabama have dropped some. Some colder air moved into NW Alabama from the NW and, over on the east side of the state, a wedge effect brought some colder temperatures. Bottom line: the atmosphere is rather stable and that should prevent a severe weather risk.
TORNADO WATCH
The exception is down state where a Tornado Watch is in effect for the extreme southern part until 11:00 p.m.
UP-TO-THE MINUTE RADAR CHECK
At 5:25 pm, extensive rain over North and West Alabama. The leading eastern edge of the rain was moving into Birmingham and Guntersville and further south it was moving into the Demopolis area. Very heavy rain has been reported in the Cuba community near Livingston. By far, the strongest thunderstorms and heaviest rain was over extreme SW Alabama diagonally across SE Mississippi and extreme SE Louisiana. Some very heavy rain will reach the Mobile area soon.
LATE REPORT FROM THE 33/40 SKYWATCHER NETWORK
Temperature down to 40 at Cuba at 5:26 pm.
Livingston reports 41 degrees.
In SW Lamar County, very heavy rain was coming down overpowering his automatic rain gauge.
Cherokee County EMA at Centre in NE Alabama reports 45 degrees, but it feels like 37. Wind east at 8 with light rain.
In Taylorville, just south of Tuscaloosa, rain was falling at the rate of 1.38 inches per hour, but it hasn’t rained that much yet.
