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Thanks to a weak convergence zone or front, Central Alabama saw numerous showers yesterday. Some of those storms got quite strong with a couple of isolated spots reporting trees down. And the lightning was quite intense, too. I’ve heard of at least two locations, one in Mountain Brook and one in Talladega City, where lightning caused house fires. And the church fire in Jasper may have been started by lightning but that has not been confirmed to my knowledge. Those storms brought some 1 to 2 inch rains. Our Skycam site in downtown Birmingham recorded 1.33 inches of rain for one of the highest reports I saw from yesterday. Interesting to note that just 5 miles away, the Birmingham airport recorded only 14 hundredths of an inch of rain from those storms. I’m always amazed at the high degree of variability in storms. And half inch hail was reported in Munford, too, so quite an afternoon yesterday.
A few leftover clouds this morning from all of the convection yesterday along with some patchy fog – great shot of that on US 280 from our Inverness Skycam. But the front/convergence zone that was the focus for storms yesterday continued to sink southward. The result is that most of the showers and thunderstorms should occur south of Birmingham today.
Dew points were dropping back into the middle 60s as evidenced by surface reports this morning. This slight drying should be enough to just about eliminate any showers from much of North and Central Alabama. I have to be honest that I still can’t rule out an isolated storm, but it sure appears that much of the upcoming week will be essentially dry.
During the upcoming week, I expect the ridge across the southern tier of the US to gradually become a bit stronger as the east coast trough finally ventures eastward. Still no signs of any truly exteme heat though we are likely to see mid and upper 90s at mid week.
Well out into voodoo land, the GFS is suggesting another east coast trough after August 10th. That’s just fine by me since that keeps the heat from becoming extreme and gives us some chance for showers despite their hit-and-miss nature.
Tropics remain relatively quiet, but we are about to enter the peak of hurricane season. That peak runs August and September, so I would expect to see a bit more action. It’s been interesting to note the complete lack of clouds across the Caribbean and South Atlantic for the last month or so. I can’t help but wonder if all that good sunshine is really warming the water temperatures down there.
Just a reminder that James Spann is on vacation this week, so I’ll be posting a morning Weather Xtreme Video each day. I plan to have the next one posted by about 8 am Tuesday morning. Plus there should be a new episode of Weather Brains by tomorrow morning – check it out at www.weatherbrains.com. I hope you have a great Monday and a wonderful week. God bless.
-Brian-
