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While we have a nice ridge in place across the Southeast, little impulses moving through the ridge helped to set off showers and thunderstorms yesterday afternoon and evening. Most of the storms and rain were confined to the area north of I-20 with the exception of one dying shower area that made it to just south of Pell City. So the storms yesterday have set the stage for today with boundaries in lots of locations that will help to focus more storm development today.
And like yesterday, some of these storms could be strong to marginally severe. Overall the atmosphere is very warm, so the threat of hail is limited – perhaps up to one inch hail could occur. Some damaging wind gusts will occur along with the possibility of flash flooding. Due to the slow movement of the storms and high precipitable water – around 1.5 inches – rainfall could be extremely heavy in some spots.
Add to all of this the appearance of a weak cold front on Wednesday, and we have all the ingredients for a couple of stormy days. Unfortunately, because of the shower nature of the pattern, some spots will get a good dousing while others may see little or no rain. Overall the QPF suggests about an inch for many locations over the next five days.
The front sags into South Alabama on Thursday and with the ridge building a little stronger, we could see a mostly dry day by Friday. However, as the front washes out Saturday and a new front approaches on Sunday, we’ll see the quick return of showers.
The GFS is setting up a short wave trough over the Southeast US coast by Monday which produces a stormy period especially over Florida. The GFS is still hinting at some sort of weak tropical development, but today’s run is an even different solution than what we’ve been seeing over the last week. It keeps this trough with a weak closed low at 500 millibars over Florida for several days before weakening and edging it out. But this is all still in voodoo country. It does look like the westerlies retreat a bit northward which would keep Central Alabama in a pattern for scattered afternoon showers and storms with little change in temperature.
Thanks for staying tuned to the Weather Xtreme Video. The gang will be posting updates today as storms fire up, so check back often for weather information. I plan to have the next Weather Xtreme Video posted between 7 and 8 am Wednesday morning plus I’ll be filling in one more time for James Spann tonight on the newscasts at 5, 6, and 10 pm. Have a great Tuesday and God bless.
-Brian-
