Not everybody got rain yesterday, but several locations did, and it actually overperformed a little bit compared to forecast expectations. Here are Doppler Radar dual-pol estimated rainfall totals from the past 24 hours. Areas in green are estimated to have seen as much as a half inch or more! Where the rain happened yesterday, it was certainly heavy at times, but as you can see, the coverage of it was very uneven with several locations remaining dry. The good news is that if you missed the rain yesterday, your chances are increasing as we go forward the next several days. I can’t guarantee everyone will see rain. There’s no day on the 7-day where the chance of rain is 100%, but we are heading into a bit of a wetter pattern.
There are actually a few spotty thunderstorms on radar over northwest Alabama even before sunrise this morning. That, combined with the fact that the high-resolution models underdid the coverage of the rain with this moisture surge both yesterday over our area and Wednesday to our south, tells me that they may be underdoing it again for today. With that in mind, I’m not going to try to show any of those high-resolution models like the HRRR or Baron 3k Futurecast like I usually would, since they are likely underdoing things. We’ll just handle the forecast for today and tonight with these forecast maps. As we already see out there this morning, a few isolated to widely scattered showers and storms certainly can’t be ruled out prior to midday; so, we’ve added low-end rain chances for the morning hours areawide. However, as we get into the midday and afternoon and we destabilize from daytime heating, the chances of those scattered showers and thunderstorms will go up. They will still be scattered similar to yesterday. Not everyone is going to get rain today. But where it does rain (and that may be for several of you), it could be heavy at times, and a storm may produce some brief gusty winds. Otherwise, expect partly sunny skies. Where you either don’t get rain, or you get an hour or more of sun after rain goes away, daytime highs today look to climb as high as the mid to upper 90s again. For those of you that get that hot, heat index values will likely exceed 103 degrees again since we have higher moisture content in place now. Be sure to stay hydrated if you have to be outdoors in that mess this afternoon.
Scattered showers and thunderstorms will hang on into the evening hours before they dissipate a couple of hours after sundown with the loss of daytime heating. That means there will probably be a few of them scattered around during the timeline for high school football games this evening. They won’t be widespread or long-lasting enough that it’s necessary to cancel games or for you to change your plans. However, it will be important that you remain weather aware if you’re heading to a game this evening, and it might not be a bad idea to carry along some rain gear, just in case! After the evening storms fade away, we’ll be partly cloudy overnight with lows in the lower 70s toward daybreak. Where we see some rain this afternoon and evening, there may be some patchy areas of fog overnight and the predawn hours of Saturday morning.
As the upper-level ridge we’ve had this week continues to break down going into the Labor Day weekend, a surface front will sag itself into the area gradually through Saturday and Sunday and interact with this deeper tropical moisture that has come northward from the Gulf of Mexico. That means increasing rain chances for at least the weekend portion of the Labor Day weekend ahead. It’s not going to be a total washout for the day at any point this weekend, but rain and storms are likely… especially during the afternoon and evening of each day. Some of the rainfall may be heavy, and a storm or two may have some gusty winds, as is often the case during the summer months. The good news for those of you trying to grill out or have other outdoor activities for Labor Day on Monday is that the front pushes through and south of the area, temporarily pushing the deeper moisture south of the area. There may still be a couple of isolated thundershowers around, but rain does not look widespread for Monday.
That frontal boundary washes out and waffles back north gradually through the week though, allowing the deeper moisture to come back northward. Rain chances still look on the isolated to widely scattered side for Tuesday, but they are trending higher for next Wednesday through Friday as that deeper moisture comes back northward ahead of another cold front timed for an arrival time of the time of next week into next weekend. We may even have to go higher with the rain chances for this period as we get closer in time. The NWS WPC’s 7 day rainfall forecast for the area has a widespread 0.75 to 1.5″, and that is a good overall estimate because of the scattered nature of everything. However, if you manage to get under some of the heavier rain multiple times over the weekend and then get rain next week, you could easily see a few inches or more of rain when all is said and done. Not everybody will see that, and it’s certainly not enough to end the worsening drought conditions over the area, but we are gradually but steadily heading in the right direction the next 7 to 10 days.
In addition to the rain chances going up, another way we look to be improving things the next several days is with the temperatures. While we will still be hot today, and even on the warm side tomorrow before the afternoon storms become more widespread, the upper-level heat ridge is weakening. Daytime highs go from the mid to upper 90s today to the upper 80s and lower 90s by Sunday and Monday. As we head into next week and that first front shifts through and then clouds and rain chances increase again by mid week, we look to see even more comfortable temperatures with daytime highs into the mid (and maybe even lower) 80s and overnight lows down into the mid 60s (lower 60s in a few spots). That looks to continue through Friday, and then early signs are that maybe even slightly cooler air than that tries to move in for next weekend behind that second cold front. Looking at the longer range, the NWS Climate Prediction Center has below average temperatures for much of the eastern United States all the way into mid September. Looking at consistent signals in the model ensembles, we don’t see reasons to disagree at this point. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves and think that summer is over after this week, because we’ve occasionally had triple digits as late as the first half of October! However, fall weather has arrived either on time or even a few weeks early here the last few years. If the pattern we see evolving going into next week doesn’t try to reverse itself going forward the next few weeks, it’s very possible that this year may be another case of fall weather not arriving behind schedule!
No active systems in the tropics at the current moment… just some disorganized storminess off the Southeast coast and into the Gulf and northwest Caribbean. However, signals are increasing that the tropical wave activity out over the central Atlantic may try to develop into the next system as we head into next week. Environmental conditions will gradually become more favorable for development, especially as we get past the weekend and head into next week. As of early this morning, the National Hurricane Center gives the wave a 50% chance of developing into a system over the next 7 days. They will have another update to that outlook at 7:00am Central Time this morning, and those probabilities may be higher. It’s still not an absolute certainty that the system develops, but if it does, it looks to track into the Caribbean. From there, there is a TON of uncertainty. We would have to watch if it would track north enough to have land interference from the Caribbean islands or if it misses them to the south. We’d also need to see how well it holds together in the eastern Caribbean where trade winds and wind shear are usually stronger. Then, there is little skill currently, if the system does organize, to say whether it may continue from the Caribbean into the Gulf or if it may try to turn northward into the Bahamas and off the East Coast. That would come down to the timing of approaching cold fronts over the mainland U.S., and it’s just too far out in time for any confidence in those kind of factors. At earliest, this system (should it even develop) is more than 7-10 days out from the mainland United States. The bottom line from all that is that there is no reason to be worried, but it is something we need to pay careful attention to as we head into next week. We are heading into the climatological heart of the Atlantic hurricane season, and things can and often do act up in a hurry this time of year. No reason to worry, be alarmed, or panic. We’ll watch it carefully in the coming days, and we will keep you informed with the latest information as it is available! Behind that lead wave, a second wave is currently flagged with a 20% chance of developing into a tropical system. My initial thoughts would be that, if that one even develops, it would likely recurve out in the open Atlantic. We’ll watch to see if those thoughts need to change going forward…
