CALMER DAY: Yesterday was a tough one for Alabama with severe storms/damaging straight line winds taking down hundreds of trees… at one point about 165,000 were without power. Outages are down to around 45,000 early this morning just before daybreak.
We have a few isolated showers/thunderstorms on radar early this morning over the western half of the state; storms today will be widely scattered, and not as fierce as the ones we experienced yesterday. Temperatures reach the mid 80s in most places this afternoon.
REST OF THE WEEK: Dry, continental air begins to roll into Alabama tonight, and most of the state will be dry tomorrow with any showers confined to Mobile and Baldwin counties. The sky will be mostly sunny, and the humidity will be lower.
All of Alabama will be dry Thursday and Friday with sunny warm days and clear pleasant nights. Most of the state will see low temperatures in the 50s early Thursday morning.
THE WEEKEND: Forecast confidence isn’t especially high with conflicting model output. The latest run of the reliable European global model shows the return of tropical air along with the chance of scattered showers and thunderstorms. Earlier runs of the same model suggested the weekend would be mostly dry. In terms of climatology it is very rare to go five days with no afternoon showers and storms in June, so most likely there will be some risk of rain by Saturday and Sunday. Highs will be in the 80s.
For now the weather next week looks pretty routine for June with warm, humid days and the typical risk of “scattered, mostly afternoon and evening showers and thunderstorms”. See the video briefing for maps, graphics, and more details.
TROPICS: This is Day 2 of the Atlantic Basin hurricane season… all is calm and tropical storm formation is not expected for at least the next seven days.
ON THIS DATE IN 1988: Severe thunderstorms in Texas and Oklahoma produced hail more than three inches in diameter near Stillwater OK, and softball size hail in Jones County of north central Texas. Baseball size hail and 70 mph winds caused an estimated 100 million dollars damage around Abilene.
Look for the next video briefing here by 3:00 this afternoon… enjoy the day!
