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Thanks to Brian Peters, J.B. Elliott, Bill Murray, Jason Simpson, and Ashley Brand for pitching in and allowing me to have a few days off to spend with family. Hard to squeeze in that last week of vacation these days with school starting so early. My next scheduled week off will come at Christmas time.
AUGUST FRONT: As you can see from Tim’s post below this one, looks like a pretty good setup for strong to severe storms across Alabama later today and tonight. A rather anomalous upper trough for August will drive a surface front into Alabama tonight, with a healthy round of showers and storms likely. Tornadoes are very rare in Alabama during August with light wind fields… the main threat will come from microbursts and small hail. Of course, all summer storms pack plenty of lightning, and on the positive side some generous rain amounts are possible. But, by late tonight, there will always be those who are disappointed in the rain totals due to the convective nature of the precipitation. Lucky neighborhoods will see well over one inch in the stronger storms.
The best chance of strong to severe storms will come from around 3:00 until 11:00 p.m.
CONTINENTAL AIR RETURNS: Drier air moves into North Alabama tomorrow. Humidity values will be much lower, and the high will be somewhere between 87 and 90 with a good supply of sunshine. The dry air stays in place over the weekend, with very pleasant nights and early mornings. We should drop into the low 60s both Saturday and Sunday morning, with 50s likely for the cooler spots. I don’t think anyone will have any problems with that. And, of course, no rain because of the dry air.
NEXT WEEK: While Monday looks dry, we will bring in a chance of afternoon showers and storms on Tuesday and Wednesday with a fairly robust upper trough approaching. If the GFS is correct we could see some pretty decent rain totals on those two days.
VOODOO LAND: No sign of any excessive heat through the rest of August. A general weakness in the upper ridge shows up around here, which should keep highs mostly in the low 90s with the almost daily opportunity of scattered showers and storms.
SO FAR IN AUGUST: The official highs in Birmingham for the first six days of August (in order): 91, 94, 95, 94, 95, 96. That makes for an average of 94.1 degrees, which is just about what we expect in early August. This is usually our hottest time of the year; the heat slowly fades later this month, and as we get into September. But, we stress we can have some hot weather in September; in fact the hottest temperature on record in Alabama was measured on September 5, 1925, when the high in Centreville was 112 degrees.
TROPICS: Amazingly quiet… a weak wave is over the Bahamas moving toward the Florida peninsula, but development won’t happen due to the upper trough that is driving the front through here tonight.
WEATHER BRAINS: Don’t forget you can listen to our weekly 30 minute netcast anytime on the web, or on iTunes. This is the show all about weather featuring many familiar voices, including our meteorologists here at ABC 33/40. You can even listen here on the blog; look for the player on the top left. We will record this week’s show tonight (weather permitting!)… and it should be posted by 11:00 p.m. or so.
TWITTER: Don’t forget, you can follow our news and weather updates from ABC 33/40 on Twitter here. And, my personal Twitter feed is here if you want to keep up with my adventures in life. Twitter is a short messaging service you can receive via the web, cell phone, or IM.
I am on the road to Jacksonville today… I will be speaking at an event that is designed to explain the removal of the old tone alert radios in East Alabama homes from the Alabama EMA; they are to be replaced by NOAA Weather Radio receivers (a total of 125,000 free Weather Radio receivers are expected to be given away to people in Calhoun, Clay, Cleburne, Etowah, St. Clair and Talladega counties). This all ties in to the Anniston Army Depot operation; I will explain more later today or tomorrow.
I will crank out the afternoon Weather Xtreme video by 3:30, unless we have too many strong to severe storms by then. Enjoy the day!
