James Spann: Routine summer weather for Alabama; eyes on the tropics
James Spann forecasts more typical August weather for Alabama from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.
ROUTINE AUGUST WEATHER: Alabama’s weather won’t change much for the rest of the week. Look for partly sunny, hot, humid days with random, scattered showers and thunderstorms around each day, mostly between 1 and 10 p.m. The chance of any one neighborhood seeing rain each afternoon will be 30-40%, and afternoon highs will be between 90 and 93 degrees, just what you expect in mid-August.
THE ALABAMA WEEKEND: We expect mixed sun and clouds Saturday and Sunday with the risk of a passing afternoon shower or thunderstorm both days. Highs will be pretty close to 90 degrees.
NEXT WEEK: The weather early in the week will be determined by a tropical system potentially moving inland from the eastern Gulf of Mexico. At the moment, it looks like Alabama could be on the drier, west side of the circulation, but there is no way of resolving details now. Otherwise, we will stick with a persistence forecast through the week with typical summer weather; highs will be between 87 and 90 degrees most days.
PTC 6: Potential Tropical Cyclone 6, now in the far eastern Caribbean, is expected to become Tropical Storm Fred later today or tonight. Tropical storm conditions are expected in portions of the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico beginning this afternoon and in the Dominican Republic Wednesday. Tropical storm conditions are possible in northern Haiti and the southeastern Bahamas by Wednesday night.
Intensification potential will be limited by interaction with the mountainous island of Hispaniola, dry air in the mid levels and westerly shear. If the system survives, the National Hurricane Center forecast has it as a tropical storm in the eastern Gulf of Mexico southwest of Tampa Bay Saturday night. It is important to remember that average track errors four and five days out with NHC forecasts are 175 miles and 200 miles, respectively.
From there, long-range modeling suggests there could be a potential landfall over the eastern Florida panhandle in six days (Monday of next week). But this system has not even developed a core, and there is no way of knowing now the ultimate destination or intensity. If you have a beach trip planned next week, I would not cancel or make any changes; just keep an eye on the system.
The rest of the Atlantic basin is quiet.
ON THIS DATE IN 1856: A hurricane destroyed Isle Dernieres or Last Island, a pleasure resort south-southwest of New Orleans. The highest points of the island were under 5 feet of water. The resort hotel was destroyed, along with the island’s gambling establishments. More than 200 people perished, and the island lost all its vegetation and split in half. Only one cow remained on the island after the catastrophe. The Last Island is now just a haven for pelicans and other seabirds.
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