Heat and Tropics are the Topic...

Unable to get enough bandwidth for a video today. Thanks for your patience on this.

First, the NWS has issued a heat advisory for today and Monday for West Central Alabama due to high heat and humidity with heat indices expected to climb to 105 or slightly above. The heat is due to the combination of surface high pressure located to our northeast with an upper level ridge just to our northwest. The combination is bringing high heat and humidity especially to the west central countries.

But we’re also dealing with Tropical Storm Debby in the Central Gulf of Mexico. Rather than repeat what has already been said, please see the post by James Spann just below this one for an in-depth discussion of the circumstances surrounding Debby.

Debby was located in the Central Gulf and nearly stationary but expected to pick up a slight westward motion Monday and Tuesday. Interesting that the European model has depicted the westward movement quite well. But now the official NHC track is closer to the coast. It still seems unlikely that beyond some high clouds we’ll see a serious impact from Debby. Debby is now forecast to reach hurricane strength later this week by Wednesday. This track will be bringing some very unsettled weather along with rip current to the northern Gulf coast from Florida all the way to Louisiana. But as James has noted below, the guidance on Debby is all over the place.

So for now, our forecast will stick with little if any impact. Have noted, too, that the ECMWF now brings Debby to the Southwest Louisiana coast toward the end of the week instead of the westward track that it has been depicting for much of the last several days.

And I can’t help but note that the GFS still brings Debby back toward the east at mid-week. Just wondering if the climatological factor in that model is overwhelming the weak steering currents across the northern Gulf coast. This one will continue to bear watching for any minor changes which could have a major impact on the weather forecast.

The GFS does advertise a weak front coming into the picture in the Tuesday time frame. This won’t help much with train but it would suggest drier air with dew points dipping back into the 50s which could help to moderate our high temperatures somewhat and drop us back into the lower 90s for highs for a couple of days.

Beyond that, the ridge becomes the primary feature in the upper air pattern as we end the week and head into voodoo country.

Don’t forget to listen to our weekly 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.

And you can follow news and weather updates from ABC 33/40 on Twitter here. Stay in the know by following the whole gang – here’s the list…

I appreciate you staying tuned to the Weather Xtreme discussion and putting up with my connectivity issues. I believe James Spann is coming off vacation on Monday, so he’s going to be watching and dealing with Debby for the next several days. Godspeed.

-Brian-