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Quite an active day of weather yesterday and last night, and it looks like the active weather will continue today especially for the southeast sections of Alabama. The surface front was located between Birmingham and Alexander City this morning making slow but steady progress southeastward. The front is expected to stall across the Gulf Coast area tonight and Monday in response to a zonal flow pattern aloft. Without any good push to move the front further south, it will pave the way for some unsettled weather for us for the next week. The focus for much of the weather will be along and just south of the stalled front, but with a zonal flow aloft, that front will meander somewhat, so the areas of rain and storms will depend on the exact location of the front. With it so close to us, we pretty much have to keep some mention of showers and thunderstorms in the forecast nearly every day. Small short waves or disturbances in the zonal flow should provide some focus for shower development, but the timing of those is difficult to specify with any precision.
Showers along with some thunderstorms – including a severe thunderstorm warning at this writing – are already active along the front. Oh, by the way, note the temperature gradient across the state of Alabama with 43 at Muscle Shoals and 73 at Enterprise. That’s the kind of difference we see more often in the middle of winter.
A quick moving short wave will zip by a bit tot he north of us on Wednesday as the next main weather threat develops as a trough moves out of the Northwest US digging into the Mississippi River Valley. This trough will dig in and amplify on Thursday providing us with some cooler weather by Friday and Saturday as the zonal flow switches to a much strong northwesterly flow. The passage of this trough along with the development of a surface low in the northwestern Gulf will finally change the overall weather pattern for us with a promise of a fabulous Saturday as we enter the first weekend of April.
Another severe weather threat is possible with this system especially over North Florida and South Georgia. However, the specific threat area will depend on the position and movement of the surface low. That low is forecast to move quickly toward the northeast reaching the eastern Great Lakes area by Friday afternoon. The 540 thickness contour reaches northern Mississippi and Alabama Friday afternoon so look for below average highs and lows over the weekend.
Rainfall over the next five days will depend on the exact location of the stationary front. 2 to 3 inches of rain are possible over the five days for locations south of Montgomery with 1 inch or so in Central Alabama. I do expect the rain amounts to be spotty due to the convective nature of the weather. Yesterday was a good example with some spots getting no rain while others got an inch.
The long range GFS forecasts maintains an active pattern with another wet episode around April 5th and into the 8th, 9th, and 10th as the Southeast gets back into a zonal to southwesterly flow with another stationary front scenario much like what we have to deal with this week.
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Enjoy the day. James Spann will be back with the next edition of the Weather Xtreme Video first thing Monday morning. Stay tuned to the Blog for the latest information on the developing weather. Enjoy the day and Godspeed.
-Brian-
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