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Josephine bit the dust yesterday though a few showers remain along with a weak low pressure area. Hanna is rapidly exiting the US with her center just about to cross the US-Canadian border according to the NWS radar in Caribou, ME. So that just leaves us with…
Fog and Ike! Yes, some dense fog this morning across much of Central and North Alabama with a Dense Fog Advisory in place until mid-morning. The fog should burn off by 9 am or so leaving us with a bright, sunny day along with warm temperatures as highs climb to near 90.
Monday should also be dry and sunny with a high 90 to 92. Tuesday a frontal boundary will be approaching which may help to set off some showers, but they are likely to be scattered in nature so not everyone will see rain. The weather for the rest of the week will depend heavily on the future course of Hurricane Ike.
Ike is a formidable Category 4 storm with highest winds estimated to be around 135 mph. Ike is moving through the southern Bahamas this morning very close to the Great Inagua Island of the Southeast Bahamas. Ike’s circulation is interacting with extreme eastern Cuba and Hispaniola, so even though the center is over relatively open water, further strengthening is likely to be slow to occur.
Ike is currently being steered by a ridge to the north of the system and the west-southwest motion should continue today before the ridge weakens and Ike turns more west-northwest. Ike is expected to move over Cuba, so some decrease in storm intensity is likely to occur. Ike should enter the Southeast Gulf on late Tuesday or early Wednesday as a Category 1 storm. But with favorable conditions, Ike is likely to ramp up to a Category 3 pretty quickly.
The future course of Ike is going to depend a great deal on developments over the Central US. A trough that was forecast to influence Ike by Tuesday or Wednesday seems to be taking a bit longer to take shape. This will allow Ike to continue on a northwesterly course toward the Louisiana or Upper Texas Coast late this week. There are still a number of unknowns, so I cannot stress enough the need for all interests along the US Gulf Coast to maintain vigilance on this system and stay informed.
The GFS projects the storm into the Louisiana coast before being picked up by the westerlies. And the GFS is suggesting that next weekend could be pretty wet for much of the Southeast including Alabama. This is getting out to the extreme time frame verging on voodoo country, so nothing is set in stone.
Way out in real voodoo country it looks like we return to a fairly benign weather pattern that I would describe as warm and dry.
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This has certainly been an exciting weekend with lots to talk about. James Spann will be back with the next Weather Xtreme Video tomorrow morning. I hope that you have a great Sunday. God bless.
-Brian-
