James Spann: Alabama stays warm through the weekend with only isolated showers, storms
James Spann forecasts mostly quiet weather for the Alabama weekend with isolated storms from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.
WARM MAY DAYS: Alabama’s weather won’t change much through the weekend. We expect partly sunny days, fair nights and isolated showers and thunderstorms from time to time. The chance of any one front yard seeing rain is 15% today, 35% Saturday and 25% Sunday. Like summer, the showers that form over the weekend will be random, and there’s no way of knowing where and when they pop up in advance; you just have to watch radar trends if you have something planned outdoors. Most of the weekend will be dry with highs in the 80s.
NEXT WEEK: The upper ridge across the Deep South will strengthen, keeping temperatures above average through the week. In fact, we expect highs above 90 degrees over the latter half of the week, the hottest weather so far this season. A shower or two can’t be totally ruled out daily, but with the ridge in place most places will be dry.
RAIN UPDATE: Conditions are getting dry across Alabama. Birmingham has measured only 0.01 inch of rain since May 2; the total for the month is 0.35 inch thanks to a decent shower we had back on May 1 that brought a third of an inch of rain. The last “big” rain was April 16-17, when 3.2 inches was measured.
LUNAR ECLIPSE SUNDAY NIGHT: A total lunar eclipse will occur Sunday night and will be visible in eastern North America, including Alabama. Unlike a solar eclipse, no special viewing precautions are necessary. During totality between 10:29 and 11:54 p.m., the moon turns a dark orange or red, which is often referred to as a “blood moon.” As sunlight passes through our atmosphere, the green, blue and violet portion of the light spectrum is filtered out while yellow, orange and especially red bend around the earth and onto the moon’s surface, giving it the reddish color.
Lunar eclipses occur only during a full moon. The May full moon is known as the Flower Moon because it’s the time of the year when wildflowers are in full bloom.
ON THIS DATE IN 1980: An F3 tornado ripped directly through the center of Kalamazoo, Michigan, killing five people, injuring 79, leaving 1,200 homeless and causing $50 million in damage. The tornado passed directly over the American Bank, where a barograph reported a pressure drop of 0.59 inches.
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