At noon on this Saturday, the sun is trying to shine through a widespread veil of high cirrostratus clouds. Some cellular cloud development was noted over Northwest and Southwest Alabama where more direct sunshine is reaching the ground.
Temperatures had made the 70s at most locations, heading toward highs in the middle to upper 70s for the most part, with a few spots likely reaching 80 later.
The nearest rain to Birmingham was an area of showers and storms approaching the Mississippi River over Northwest Mississippi and western Tennessee.
Those storms are expected to intensify as we go through the afternoon and a severe weather watch might be likley later for parts of Arkansas, western Tennessee, northern Louisiana and Northwest Mississippi.
This activity will reach western Alabama tonight. Present indications are that it will be weakening when it reaches us, but the extreme western counties of Alabama are still outlooked by the SPC for a slight risk of severe weather overnight. The most recent Day2 outlook starting tomorrow morning has a good bit of the eastern 3/4 of Alabama in a slight risk outlook area tomomrrow.
This is not a clear cut severe weather situation, as instabilities are going to be marginal and the main dynamics of the system are lifting out to the north with the low over Nebraska. But as always, we want to keep an eye on potential developments in case things change.
We still expect about one half to one inch of rain overnight and Sunday morning from this system. We can use it.
To the north, a new tornado watch has been issued for much of Iowa as well as parts of Missouri, Nebraska and tiny piece of South Dakota. The deepening surface low will give a good chance of tornadoes to those areas this afternoon.
Forecast update coming up shortly…have a great afternoon…we will be monitoring the weather throughout the night…
