James Spann forecasts more dog-day weather for Alabama on Friday from Alabama News Center on Vimeo.

HIGHS STAY IN THE 90s: Look for highs between 95 and 99 degrees today and over the weekend as the upper ridge remains in place across the southern U.S. Each day we will see a few isolated, pop-up thunderstorms, mostly between 2 and 8 p.m. While most places won’t see a drop of rain, where the storms do form (they will be in random locations), they could be heavy, with potential for strong winds and small hail. One of those formed right on top of downtown Birmingham Thursday around 4 p.m.

The chance of any one spot getting wet is 20% today, 30% Saturday and 20% Sunday. The Storm Prediction Center has put north Alabama in a marginal risk (level 1 out of 5) of severe thunderstorms Sunday.

This is for potential for strong storms over western Tennessee to enter Alabama in a northwest flow aloft Sunday afternoon.

NEXT WEEK: The weather won’t change much Monday and Tuesday, but we continue to see evidence that the ridge will weaken over the latter half of the week, with lower heat levels and a high coverage of scattered showers and thunderstorms.

TROPICS: Shower activity has increased since Thursday in association with a tropical wave about midway between the Cabo Verde Islands and the Lesser Antilles. Environmental conditions are expected to be favorable for gradual development of this system in a few days, and a tropical depression could form early next week while the system moves generally west-northwestward over the tropical Atlantic. The National Hurricane Center gives the system a 50% chance of development over the next five days. If anything does develop, it will most likely recurve into the open Atlantic well east of the U.S.

There’s still no sign of any tropical systems near the U.S. or the Gulf of Mexico for at least the next seven days.

ON THIS DATE IN 1976: At 3:42 a.m., an earthquake measuring between 7.8 and 8.2 magnitudes on the Richter scale flattened Tangshan, a Chinese industrial city with a population of about 1 million people. An estimated 242,000 people in Tangshan and surrounding areas were killed, making the earthquake one of the deadliest in recorded history, surpassed only by the 300,000 who died in the Calcutta earthquake in 1737 and the 830,000 thought to have perished in China’s Shaanxi province in 1556.

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