Well, it’s no doubt that today was the beginning of the more active pattern that we’re expecting over the next several days. Already through this Afternoon we’ve seen a pretty decent handful of showers and thunderstorms develop across the area, with some particularly heavy rain rates at times in the Shoals, towards Huntsville, and out towards Waynesboro as well. By all accounts today was a classic summer day – and is in fact the last day of summer. But despite this, Mother Nature hasn’t taken notice. Our workweek, the first of Fall, will be much of the same if not more, with only mildly cooler conditions inbound for now. Let’s take a look.
For our Monday to kick our Fall off indeed we hold onto Summer as far as temperatures are concerned with widespread upper 80s (near 90 at times) and scattered thunderstorms as moisture sticks around (so for those of us who do avoid rain, it’ll still be hot and rather humid). Much like today they will be somewhat “popcorn” in nature, blowing up and fading away at random across the area.
Of note is the introduction of a LEVEL 1 of 5 severe weather risk tomorrow for Northern and Eastern portions of the area by the Storm Prediction Center, not only for tomorrow, but also for Tuesday which looks in many ways the same as Monday, forecast-wise. Now, we’re not expecting major severe weather issues, but this risk level indicates that there is that chance for a couple of those storms to end up on the stronger side – think gusts to 50+mph, and some small hail at times. The tornado threat is minimal in environments like this and is not the primary concern. Outside of that, we of course will see sporadic heavy downpours and very frequent lightning both days, so lets go ahead and factor this into our day plans and keep an eye on the radar.
This all comes to a T in the midweek (Wednesday-Thursday) as the parent systems trucks on through, bringing our higher rain chances through both days. Widespread showers and thunderstorms look likely in this timeframe and, while it’s still a bit further out than the Storm Prediction Center outlooks typically go, it’s safe to assume, looking at the environmental conditions, that similar risk levels as Monday and Tuesday will exist regarding the chances for stronger storms. We also want to keep an eye on the possibility of isolated flash flooding at times due to the fact that these storms will be rather efficient rain-makers!
On the bright side this does drag a front through and that brings our temperatures down to some extent, though we are still certainly a bit too early in the season to be seeing any sort of major crashing cold fronts. After the wetter period of Wednesday-Thursday, however, current indications are that precipitation chances after the system will be relatively more isolated, so not as widespread, on the backside of this pattern. Nevertheless, that umbrella better not leave your side this week!
