In the morning Weather Xtreme Video, I noted that the temperature forecast was going to be a bit of a challenge today. Indeed, as James as noted many, many times and nearly all forecasters understand is that no area or region is a one number place. Today is an example of one of those days where that is painfully true!
This morning a large cluster of thunderstorms situated in the vicinity of Meridian kept morning lows in the rainy area around 70 or so. Clouds from that complex spread out affecting spots even where rain did not occur by holding temperatures in check. While some other spots, away from the clouds and rain, saw more sunshine. So the result?
Around 1 pm, temperature observations ranged from 79 at Meridian which saw a nice rain or around a quarter of an inch (less than I expected them to get) to 84 to 86 in the Birmingham area which saw the clouds but very little rain, to 90 degrees in the Montgomery area which saw mostly a sunny morning with just a cumulus field.
The temperature differences were somewhat more pronounced at the noon observations, but have smoothed out a bit at 1 pm as the clouds have become more uniform and the effects of the rain have moderated.
Now, as I noted in the morning discussion, will we see showers develop and how numerous? When you have a big complex in the morning like we saw this morning, it can sometimes stabilize the atmosphere enough to suppress any afternoon convection driven by the heating. It does appear that we will get getting some showers, isolated at the moment but there is still a long afternoon ahead – with showers developing in Bibb County, in East Central Alabama from Talladega to Anniston, and in extreme Northeast Alabama in Jackson County. Showers were moving slowly northward.
Also of interest was an area of scattered showers in Southeast Alabama also moving northward. Precipitable water values across Central Alabama were in the range of 1.8 to 2.1 inches and those values are likely to go up a bit with 850 millibar moisture transport from south to north.
-Brian-
