James Spann forecasts dry, increasingly hot days for Alabama from Alabama News Center on Vimeo.

DRY SUMMER WEATHER: Alabama’s forecast through the weekend will feature gradually rising heat levels and the lack of afternoon showers and storms. Most communities will be dry through Sunday with mostly sunny days and fair nights. The high will be in the low 90s today, followed by mid 90s Friday and upper 90s over the weekend. Thankfully, humidity levels will be relatively low for midsummer and the heat index won’t be much of a factor. We expect no rain through Saturday and only isolated showers Sunday.

NEXT WEEK: The overall pattern won’t change much for at least the first half of the week. Highs will be in the mid to upper 90s with only isolated showers. There is evidence the air will be more unstable toward the end of the week, with scattered showers and storms becoming more numerous by next Friday and the following weekend, July 20-21.TROPICS: A broad trough of low pressure a few hundred miles off the southeastern U.S. coast continues to produce disorganized showers and thunderstorms. Environmental conditions appear marginally favorable for some additional development of this system over the next couple of days before it moves inland over the southeastern U.S. by this weekend. The rest of the Atlantic basin is very quiet.

RAIN UPDATE: Here are rain totals for the year so far, and the departure from average:

• Mobile — 36.64 inches (0.95 inch above average)
• Montgomery — 36.25 inches (7.88 inches above average)
• Huntsville — 33.7 (2.98 above average)
• Muscle Shoals — 33.52 (2.77 above average)
• Anniston — 30.47 (0.5 above average)
• Tuscaloosa — 29.98 (0.05 below average)
• Dothan — 29.75 (0.69 above average)
• Birmingham — 27.05 (5.14 below average)

ON THIS DATE IN 1936: From July 5 to July 17, temperatures exceeding 111 degrees in Manitoba and Ontario, Canada, claimed 1,180 lives (mostly the elderly and infants) during the most prolonged, deadliest heat wave on record. Four hundred of these deaths were caused by people who drowned seeking refuge from the heat. In fact, the heat was so intense that steel rail lines and bridge girders twisted, sidewalks buckled, crops wilted and fruit baked on trees.

ON THIS DATE IN 1980: Birmingham’s high was 102 degrees as the generational heat wave of 1980 intensified. Starting July 10, Birmingham’s highs were 101, 102, 104, 106, 103, 102, 105 and 105. The hottest day of the summer was July 17, when more than 80% of the state reached 100 degrees and nearly one-quarter of the state reached 105. The highest reading was 108 degrees, recorded in the cities of Bessemer, Aliceville and Jasper. It was 105 in Birmingham that day. In July, there were an estimated 120 heat-related deaths along with the loss of more than 200,000 chickens and half the state’s corn crop.

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