**No Weather Xtreme video today… I am working the morning TV shift, and then will be on the road the Mississippi State for the Southeast Severe Storms Symposium. Brian Peters will have the video updates tomorrow and Sunday, and my regular schedule returns Monday**
About to go on TV at 4:30 (yep, our morning show now begins at 4:30 a.m.)… so below is the discussion from our seven day forecast page. I note a few isolated showers over Northeast Alabama at 3:50 as I write this, but they should be gone by the time you read this.
SEPTEMBER HEAT WAVE ROLLS ALONG: Seems like the summer of 2010 just doesn’t want to go away. A persistent upper ridge will remain parked over Alabama and the Deep South for the next 5 to 7 days, meaning hot weather will continue unabated with little if any chance of rain. The forecast will sound like a broken record, but we get the idea things will change in a big way late this month.
OUR WEEKEND: We are looking at mostly sunny hot days, and fair nights through Sunday, with afternoon highs in the 91 to 95 degree range, which is 7 to 10 degrees above average for mid-September. No records, however, as we would have to reach triple digits to be in record territory. The record high for today is 101, recorded in 1927, which was one of the hottest summers on record in Alabama. Lows will be generally in the 60s.
FOOTBALL WEATHER: For the high school games, tonight will be rain-free with a clear sky. Temperatures will fall from the upper 80s at kickoff to near 82 by the final whistle.
Tomorrow, Auburn hosts Clemson at Jordan-Hare Stadium at 6:00; the sky will be clear with the temperature falling from near 87 at kickoff to the low 80s by the fourth quarter. Alabama will be in Durham, NC to play Duke (2:30 p.m. kickoff on ABC 33/40); the sky will be sunny with temperatures in the mid 80s during the game. UAB hosts Troy at Legion Field in Birmingham tomorrow at 3:00… lots of sunshine during the game with temperatures falling from the low 90s at kickoff to the upper 80s by the end of the game.
NEXT WEEK: No real change, although we will introduce the chance of widely scattered showers on Wednesday as moisture begins to increase. Highs stay in the low to mid 90s each day.
VOODOO LAND: We call any forecast period beyond 7 days “voodoo land” simply because there isn’t much skill in a specific forecast. However, you can draw some ideas based on pattern recognition, and we note the primary American computer model has been consistently developing a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico in the September 27-30 time frame in recent days, which seems very plausible. We will have a better idea, of course, by the middle of next week. But, with a big upper air pattern change coming and a ton of latest heat energy available in the Gulf, we could have some trouble coming. Stay tuned.
THE TROPICS TODAY: Igor is a large and very dangerous hurricane, and taking aim at the tiny island of Bermuda. The official NHC track has the storm moving right over the island Sunday night before it moves into the North Atlantic and weakens. While it won’t get close to the U.S. coast, it will still generate huge swells and dangerous rip tides. To the east, Hurricane Julia is weakening and will remain basically in the middle of nowhere.
And, to the south, Hurricane Karl will make landfall late today as a category two hurricane on the coast of Mexico well south of Brownsville, Texas.
ON THIS DATE IN 1988: The Hurricane Bowl. The college footbll game that didn’t happen. University of Alabama football coach Bill Curry made the decision not to fly his team to College Station, Texas to play Texas A&M as Hurricane Gilbert moved acros the Gulf of Mexico. The storm later moved into Mexico. At what would have been gametime, viewers on ESPN watched as the announcers sat in an empty stadium awash in beautiful blue skies and hot temperatures. The game would eventually be played in December, and Alabama would win.
I will have a new discussion posted from MSU this afternoon. Enjoy the day!
