Weather enthusiasts eyes are glued to the Southeast where a strong surface low was located this evening in the vicinity of Shreveport, LA. A long squall line trained off to the southwest to near Houston, TX. A tornado watch, number 9, was in effect for a large portion of Southwest Louisiana and a good chunk of Southeast Texas.
Across most of Alabama, dew points were uniformly in the 40s with readings in the 50s along the immediate coast. Further west, dew points were climbing into the lower 60s just ahead of the squall line. The gradient in dew points across northern Louisiana was about 12 degrees running from 49 at Vicksburg to 61 at Shreveport.
The 00Z NAM model was in, and the output numbers were intriguing. The NAM shows dew points in Birmingham climbing into the lower 60s between noon and 6 pm. SBCAPE shoots from 0 at noon to just over 1000 at 6 pm. Helicity values were projected to be around 428 at noon dropping off to 303 at 6 pm. An earlier run of the GFS suggested around a quarter of an inch of rain, and now this latest NAM is projecting only 29 hundredths of an inch, most of it coming between noon and 6 pm.
All of these – with the exception of the projected precip – are fairly respectable numbers. Let’s hope the rainfall numbers are off a bit, though.
This is one of the interesting things about weather – it’s always a wild ride!! So hang on!!
-Brian-
