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As expected, today has been a partly sunny and warm day for Alabama. Temperatures at 2:00 are generally between 80 and 85 degrees; Birmingham is reporting 82. Our weather stays warm and dry tomorrow, but we continue to be optimistic about a chance of showers and thunderstorms by Wednesday afternoon as a cold front slices into the state.
Unfortunately the models are trending a little drier; the NAM is now printing 0.33″ for Birmingham, while the GFS shows only 0.22″. The QPF graphics from HPC are also around a quarter of an inch. For now it looks like our best chance of showers and storms will come from about 1:00 p.m. through 8:00 p.m. Wednesday. A few strong storms are possible, but a major severe weather event isn’t likely due to the lack of dynamics.
A BREATH OF FRESH AIR: A nice change to cooler weather will follow the showers. Highs will drop into the 70s on Thursday and Friday, with early morning temperatures possibly reaching the 40s both Friday and Saturday morning. The humidity will be low, and a fresh north breeze will make for unusually comfortable conditions for mid-May in Alabama. We won’t have too many more surges of continental Polar air into the Deep South, so enjoy it!
THE WEEKEND: Very dry air will mean sunny warm days and clear cool nights for Alabama over the weekend. Temperatures will warm slowly; we should be in the low 80s Saturday with mid 80s by Sunday.
LONG RANGE: Still some hint of a surface front that stalls out over North Alabama in the May 23-24 time frame, which hopefully will bring a chance of showers and storms to the state. And, at the end of the forecast around May 30 the GFS continues to show a tropical system in the central Gulf of Mexico. Bear in mind there is a good bit of latent heat energy stored up in the Gulf and I would not be surprised if an early season system does blow up down there. Remember, that might be a good thing. A tropical depression or weak tropical storm can be a drought buster for Alabama.
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I had a great visit today at Cherokee Bend Elementary School in Mountain Brook; be sure and look for those 3rd graders on the KIDCAM today at 5:00 on ABC 33/40 News! I will have the next Weather Xtreme video posted by 7:00 a.m. tomorrow….
