SUNNY, PLEASANT AFTERNOON: The sky is sunny across Alabama again today with temperatures in the 60s and low 70s. Tonight will be clear with a low in the 40s for most places.

Dry weather continues over the weekend with a warming trend; highs will be in the 70s Saturday and Sunday with a good supply of sunshine both days.

NEXT WEEK: We still see no rain through Wednesday with highs mostly in the 70s. Some spots could touch the 80-degree mark by midweek as the warming trend continues. Global models suggest a risk of widely scattered showers by Thursday and Friday ahead of a surface front, but the chance of meaningful rain looks low. We continue to see signals of a good rain for the Deep South in the November 14-18 time frame.

DROUGHT MONITOR: The new drought monitor was released Thursday, and conditions continue to deteriorate. Right now, 99.57% of Alabama is either in a drought (95.39%) or abnormally dry. An extreme drought is defined for the Tennessee Valley and the southwest counties of the state.

FOOTBALL WEATHER: Expect a clear sky for the high school games across Alabama tonight with temperatures falling through the 50s.

Saturday, UAB hosts Florida Atlantic at Protective Stadium in downtown Birmingham (2 p.m. kickoff). The sky will be sunny with temperatures in the low 70s.

Auburn travels to Nashville to take on Vanderbilt (3 p.m. CT kickoff). The sky will be clear with upper 60s at kickoff, dropping into the low 60s by the final whistle.

Alabama will host LSU at Bryant-Denny Stadium (6:45 p.m. kickoff). The sky will be clear with temperatures falling through the 60s. It will be a perfect night for football in Tuscaloosa.

TROPICS: A broad area of low pressure continues to produce a large area of disorganized showers and thunderstorms over the western Caribbean Sea. Further development of this system appears unlikely before it moves inland over Central America tonight or on Saturday. Regardless of development, this system is expected to bring heavy rains over portions of Central America through the weekend. This rainfall could produce flash flooding, along with mudslides in areas of higher terrain. The chance of development has dropped to 10%.

The rest of the Atlantic basin is quiet.

ON THIS DATE IN 1966: An early-season snowfall, which started on Nov. 2, whitened the ground from Alabama to Michigan. Mobile had its earliest snowflakes on record. Huntsville measured 4 inches.

ON THIS DATE IN 2001: Hurricane Michelle reached peak intensity. Michelle made landfall Nov. 4-5 between Playa Larga and Playa Giron, Cuba, as a Category 4 hurricane, the strongest to strike the country since 1952’s Hurricane Fox. The storm caused an estimated $2 billion (U.S. dollars) in damage to Cuba.

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