James Spann has the forecast heading into the Alabama weekend from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.
QUIET THROUGH THE WEEKEND: A surface front will push into Alabama from the north this evening. Usually with this setup in late July you expect a number of showers and thunderstorms, but this time we have very limited moisture and little dynamic support, so we are forecasting nothing more than isolated showers this afternoon and early tonight. The chance of any one spot getting wet will be around 10 percent; otherwise, today will be partly sunny with a high in the low 90s.
Tomorrow will feature a good supply of sunshine and lower humidity levels for the northern half of Alabama; the high will be near 90 degrees. Sunday morning will be rather pleasant with a low well down in the 60s; cooler pockets could visit the upper 50s. Then, during the day Sunday, the weather remains pretty quiet with a partly to mostly sunny sky and just a small risk of an afternoon shower. Sunday’s high will be in the low 90s.
NEXT WEEK: The latest few runs of the Global Forecast System hint that Monday will stay mostly dry for north Alabama, with showers confined to the southern half of the state. Then, shower and thunderstorm coverage will increase statewide Tuesday through Thursday as moisture levels rise and the air becomes more unstable, thanks to an upper trough to the west. Showers could thin out a bit by Friday as the air becomes a little drier. The high Monday will be in the low 90s, but the rest of the week will feature highs in the 80s because of clouds and showers.
TROPICS: All remains quiet across the vast Atlantic basin, and tropical storm formation is not expected through the weekend. Our friend and tropical expert Phil Klotzbach notes North Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in Main Development Region (MDR) (10-20°, 60-20°W) have anomalously cooled over the past several days. Ten-day average MDR SSTs are now the coldest on record and about 0.7 degrees Celsius cooler than the 1981-2010 average. In general, cooler SSTs mean quieter Atlantic hurricane seasons.
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