The latest edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme Video is available in the player below and on iTunes.
What can you say about the weather in Central Alabama. Our weather is going to remain warm and dry, but there is a lot of weather around to talk about. And could there be some serious rain in our future? But before we go into that, I thought I’d start out with some home video (do I hear groans from the audience?). But I think you will enjoy the 25 seconds of home video of the visitors we had to our Mt. Cheaha campsite yesterday evening.
Turning back to our weather, it looks like above normal temperatures will be with us through the weekend and into the start of next week. This has been something we’ve just come to expect. The atmosphere remains fairly dry with a gradient in moisture from east to west with the east drier than the west. So isolated showers will once again be possible, but I believe they will occur primarily over western sections of Alabama. And much the same pattern will continue Sunday and Monday as we see highs around 90 to 92.
But by Tuesday we may see some changes beginninr. A trough moving into the northwest US Sunday will gradually strengthen a bit and move across the Central US. This trough splits with the northern section moving faster off to the east while leaving a small trough back across the Southeast. This should be enough to bring a weak front into the area of Tennessee by Tuesday or Wednesday creating a situation with more shower coverage for Central Alabama.
The GFS and the NAM don’t really agree too well. The NAM actually develops a tropical system in the Gulf tomorrow and brings it up to the Texas Coast on Tuesday. From there it weakens but travels northeast along the frontal zone and could potentially bring some very wet weather to Central Alabama around mid-week. Since nothing has developed yet, this will be a scenario we’ll watch. I’m hopeful that the NAM is correct because that kind of scenario would really help the water situation in our state while not causing havoc for coastal areas. Stay tuned!
Another trough moves into the Northwest US around Thursday and really sharpens up by Saturday, September 15th. This is verging on voodoo land, so I’m not so confident, but it is about time for us to see a really good cold front and this scenario could do it. I’m crossing my fingers for it – I’m ready for COOL weather.
In the tropics, the National Hurricane Center named the disturbance off the Southeast Atlantic coast late last night – it’s now Gabrielle. Satellite imagery sure does not look very good with a rather ragged storm. And the forecast is for it to stay at tropical storm strength as it moves west-northwest and gradually turns north and northeast. This track will give a glancing blow to the Outer Banks of North Carolina and some exciting weather for them – not necessarily the kind of excitement they want.
Another area of disturbed weather was located southwest of the Cape Verde Islands way out in the Atlantic, so we have another potential tropical system to be watching. No lack of things to watch and discuss.
Long range forecasts bring a pretty good rain event to Central Alabama around the 19th with another tropical system threatening the Southeast Atlantic Coast around the 23rd – but a lot will change between now and then.
While all of this weather churns around us, I’m going to enjoy the cool temperatures of Mt. Cheaha where it has only gotten to 84 over the last couple of days with morning temperatures in the 60s. Nice, nice, nice. So I’ll sip some iced tea sitting in the shade watching the deer feast on the cracked corn – ah, what a hectic life I lead!!
-Brian-
