James Spann forecasts a dry, cooler weekend for Alabama from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.

DRY COLD FRONT ARRIVES TONIGHT: Look for another sunny day across Alabama today with a high between 81 and 85 degrees; the average high for Birmingham on Oct. 7 is 79. A cold front will roll through the state tonight in dry fashion, and cooler air settles in for the weekend. Expect highs between 72 and 76 degrees, and by early Sunday morning lows will be well down in the 40s. Cooler spots across north Alabama will likely visit the 30s for the first time this season. The air stays dry with sunny days and clear nights.

NEXT WEEK: We expect a warming trend, with highs exceeding 80 degrees again by midweek. Then a cold front will approach Thursday, which will bring our first chance of rain in quite a while. We aren’t expecting a big rain event, but periods of rain are likely Thursday with amounts generally one-quarter inch or less. Friday will be sunny and cooler, with a high in the low 70s.

Some notes on the dry conditions (based on data at Birmingham):

• Today is the 12th consecutive day with no measurable rain.
• Our last measurable rain was on Sept. 25, but the amount was only 0.03 inch.
• We have gone without measurable rain on 26 of the last 27 days.
• The last day with more than one-tenth of an inch of rain was Sept. 4, when the total was 1.55 inches.

FOOTBALL WEATHER: Expect another delightful evening for high school football games across the state tonight; the sky will be clear with temperatures falling through the 60s.

Auburn travels to Athens Saturday to take on the Georgia Bulldogs (2:30 p.m. CT kickoff). The sky will be sunny and the temperature about 75 degrees at kickoff, falling to near 70 by the final whistle.

UAB has a home game in downtown Birmingham Saturday at Protective Stadium against Middle Tennessee (also a 2:30 p.m. kickoff). It will be a sunny afternoon with temperatures falling from around 73 degrees at kickoff into the upper 60s by the final whistle.

Saturday night, Alabama hosts Texas A&M (kickoff at 7) at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa. The sky will be clear with temperatures falling from 67 degrees at kickoff into the 50s by the fourth quarter. It will be a perfect night for football.

TROPICS: Tropical Depression 12 has dissipated in the eastern Atlantic far from land. Tropical Depression 13 has formed in the far southern Caribbean; it should become Tropical Storm Julia today, and landfall is expected Sunday on the coast of Nicaragua. There’s a decent chance the system will dissipate inland over Central America; if any circulation survives it could move into either the Pacific or the Bay of Campeche.The rest of the Atlantic basin is very quiet.

ON THIS DATE IN 2018: Only eight hours after it became a depression, the National Hurricane Center upgraded a tropical system to Tropical Storm Michael. Tropical-storm-force winds and torrential downpours were affecting portions of the coastal east-central Yucatan Peninsula. Michael would go on to become a Category 5 hurricane with landfall near Mexico Beach, Florida, a few days later.

BEACH FORECAST: Click here to see the AlabamaWx Beach Forecast Center page.

For more weather news and information from James Spann and his team, visit AlabamaWx.