Showers and thunderstorms that earlier produced some lightning and thunder, heavy rain and small hail from the Birmingham area up to Blount County and into Etowah County have weakened over the past hour and have nearly dissipated.

Further south, the thunderstorm area over South Central Alabama has diminished into a large ara of moderate to occasionally heavy rain.

The Flash Flood Watch has been cancelled for Central Alabama. The threat for heavy rain has ended.

Stronger storms continue over extreme South Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, but they too have weakened.

Back to the west, a sharp but narrow line of showers with a little embedded thunder is moving across North and Central Mississippi. It will reach the Northwest Corner of the state about 11:15 p.m.... Marion County about 12:15 a.m. and Pickens County about 2:15 a.m. This activity is ahead of a cold front that is now moving across Mississippi.

The airmass across North Alabama is just too stable for any dangerous weather overnight...although don't be surprised if you thunder, a brief burst of intense rain and a rush of wind in the middle of the night as the narrow line passes.

It was 53F at Harrison AR with a brisk northwest wind at 9 p.m.

Strong storms continue over South Mississippi, but they are now south of US-82. A tornado warning was in effect until 10 p.m. for three counties around Prentiss, but the activity appeared to have weakened on radar in the past few minutes. No word out of Jackson on whether the warnings will be extended eastward.

A late storm report from South Alabama:
A meat packing plant was damaged in the Clarke County city of Tallahatta Springs on Highway 154. It was accompanied by baseball sized hail.

Good news...the overall severe weather situation seems to be lessening over Alabama and Mississippi.

Tornado watch 335 for South Alabama is expiring at 9 p.m. and will not be extended...

Tornado watch 332 for Mississippi and Louisiana and Mississippi is also expiring at 9 p.m. and will not be extended...

Some elevated storms continue north of the stationary front. They are lifting northward from Marion through Winston to Cullman to Blount... Etowah and over to Cleburne County.

Hail was reported from Etowah County from Attalla to Gadsden. The hail was marble sized. These storms are not very organized and are not expected to become severe.

The rain area to the south has worked back northward a bit into Chilton County, but is now retreating back to the south. Some small storms formed over Bibb and Shelby Counties and were merging back into the rain area.

Back to the west, a line of showers is moving eastward over Mississippi from Holly Spring down to near Indianola. The system is not getting its act together. It will proceed eastward into Alabama later tonight, but it does not appear that it will cause much trouble.

After the cold front passes, expect clearing and windy conditions tomorrow.

Seems like I have to write about this subject every few months… but after getting some nasty e-mail from viewers in Marengo County yesterday the time has come again. Our severe weather policy at ABC 33/40 is this: we will provide long form, continuous weather coverage anytime a county in our DMA (designated market area) is under a tornado warning. We cannot make that promise for counties outside the DMA.

We have a number of out-of-market counties where we know plenty of people watch us, counties like Marengo and Perry (assigned to Montgomery), Sumter (assigned to Meridian), Lamar (assigned to Columbus/Tupelo), Tallapoosa (assigned to Montgomery), Cleburne and Randolph (assigned to Atlanta), and Marshall and DeKalb (assigned to Huntsville).

The deal is actually pretty simple. Counties are assigned to markets based on the viewing habits of people in the county. If a majority of people in the county watch local TV out of Birmingham, then they are in the Birmingham market. Marengo is in the Montgomery market because a majority of people in the county watch local Montgomery TV stations.

When Marengo County went under a tornado warning yesterday, we cut off General Hospital for about 10 minutes, but went back to regular programming. We always air the warnings for out-of-market counties that can receive Birmingham TV, but it isn’t fair to prevent our home market viewers from watching regular programming when that happens.

If you live in Marengo County (or any of the counties I listed above), just tell everyone you know to begin watching local TV out of Birmingham, and maybe we can get the county assigned to us. We even have installed a live SKYCAM camera atop the Demopolis Civic Center. We would love to have you, but we have no control over the situation. It is all up to the viewers of each county!

Showers and storms continue tonight over North Central Alabama over Lamar... Fayette... Walker,.. southern Cullman and northern Jefferson County. I experienced a brief period of heavy rainfall and some loud thunder in Trussville about 7:30 p.m. J.B. reported that there might have also been some pea sized hail with the storm. This activity is moving north and east into St. Clair County and Blount County.

Activity over Central Mississippi has shown a weakening trend over the past hour. A potentially tornadic storm continues just north of US Highway 82 northeast of Brookhaven. It continues moving east. This activity is continuing along a stationary front over South Central Mississippi. The NWS Jackson has cleared couties from Jackson westward for the time being from the tornado watch.

This front extends over into South Alabama, where heavy thunderstorms continue. No severe thunderstorm warnings are in effect at this time. A tornado watch does continue for almost all of South Alabama.

Some severe weather reports from South Alabama...
...at 6:11, basebal sized hail was reported at Thomasville in Clarke County. The person taking the call could hear the hail hitting the car of the caller.
...at 6:05 p.m. a large tornado was reported near Opine in Clarke County
...Around 6:15 p.m...a tornado touched down briefly between Fulton and Chilton in Clarke County

Back to the northwest, showers and storms are beginning to fire near Memphis ahead of the cold front. The airmass over North and Central Alabama should support another round of showers and storms just ahead of the front. That should arrive after midnight. It remains to be seen whether they will be severe, but because of the wind fields, that seems to be a distinct possibility.

Until then, additional showers and storms could form over North and Central Alabama, but they are not expected to be severe for the most part.

That cold front, along the Mississippi River, will arrive during the overnight hours. Look for lows here tomorrow night to be in the middle 40s...

A flash flood watch remains in effect for the western half of Central Alabama until midnight.

National note: Another record for the date... a record low at Idaho Falls, ID, with morning low of 24F.

Conditions are relatively calm at the moment across the northern half of Alabama. Temperatures are in the upper 60s to near 70. Dewpoints are in the lower 60s, certainly not supportive of major severe weather. But as a strong cold front approaches later tonight and stronger upper level dynamics come into play, we will probably deal with additional strong storms.

Showers and storms are forming over North Central Alabama across Pickens... Lamar... Fayette... Walker and northern Jefferson County. This activity is moving east at about 40 mph. It will bring brief heavy rain and lightning to Fultondale, Gardendale, Pinson and Trussville over the next 30 minutes.

Intense thunderstorms continue to rumble along a stationary front that is located over South Central Alabama.

The storms extend from Choctaw and northern Clarke Counties through Wilcox and into southern Montgomery Counties. The main part of the line continues to seemingly sag southward slowly, but rainfall has expanded northward north of the boundary, probably in response to a southwesterly flow just above the surface that is pumping moisture northeastward.

The strongest storms in the state are over northern Clarke County near Grove Hill and over northern Monroe and eastern Wilcox COunty north of Monroeville and west of Greenville. A Tornado warning was in effect for northern Monroe County and Clarke County until 715pm.

A tornado watch is in effect for near all of South Alabama.

Several Flash Flood Warnings are in effect for Central Alabama...and a Flash Flood Watch remains in effect until midnight for the western half of Central Alabama.

To the west, activity expected to intensify over southern Louisiana and southwestern and south central Mississippi in very unstable airmass ahead of cold front.

Several flash flood warnings back in Central Mississippi as well as a tornado watch.

The NWS Jackson reported a tornado on the ground as reported by spotters at 6:55 p.m. 8 miles NW of Brookhaven. The storm was crossing I-55 between Hazelhurst and Brookhaven.

To the north, new tornado watch for southern Indiana, western and northern Kentucky and southwestern Ohio. This activity is closer to the surface low and has good low level wind shear.

In Texas, a record high was set today at Victoria, where it was a sizzling 97F. It was also 97F in San Antonio, which was good enough to tie the daily record.

More digital images from our viewers this afternoon...


A large tree down in the East Lake part of Birmingham, near the entrance to Ruffner Mountain.


Flooding near Brierfield, between Montevallo and Centreville.

The weather has greatly improved over North and NW Alabama. Most of the thunderstorms are gone from that area. No watch is currently in effect for the entire northern half of the state. The main action is down south.

A line of intense thunderstorms was across South-Central Alabama, mainly from Lee County westward to the Montgomery area and to south of Selma and Demopolis. The line was slowly sinking toward the south. North of that line, a large moderate to heavy rain area persisted over East-Central Alabama from Talladega County eastward.

That line of thunderstorms down south also extends westward all across Central Mississippi and North Louisiana into SE Texas. A wave had formed along a cold front over NE Louisiana and that is temporarily preventing those storms from getting further to the south.

A Tornado Warning was issued for the Jackson area in Mississippi until 5:30.

In Alabama, a Severe Thunderstorm Warning was posted for Russell County until 5:15. Flash Flood Warnings also continue for Chambers, Lee, Lowndes and Montgomery Counties and for Bibb, Chilton, Coosa, Tallapoosa and Marengo Counties until 5:45.

For a tiime this afternoon, US-43 was closed in the Linden area of Marengo County due to flooding.

The Storm Prediction Center has reduced the moderate risk area for the remainder of this event to SW Alabama and South Mississippi.

Cities like Huntsville, Scottsboro, Florence, Cullman, Birmingham and Tuscaloosa are out of danger for any more severe weather.

Just to throw in a little something different--a freeze warning is in effect tonight for much of Eastern Colorado and extreme NW Kansas.

Thanks to Matthew McCracken and Marion County EMA for these images of damage around Hamilton today:

These additional counties are no longer under a Severe Thunderstorm Watch:

Bibb, Blount, Calhoun, Chilton, Clay, Cleburne, Coosa, Etowah, Jefferson, Randolph, Shelby, St. Clair, Talladega

The most intense thunderstorms now south of those areas.

Flash Flood warnings continue for several counties scattered across Central Alabama. Flash Flood Warnings continue until 5:45 for Bibb, Chilton, Coosa, Tallapoosa and Marengo counties.

RAINFALL NOTES

2.10 inches in Demopolis today
1.42 inches at Helena since midnight (Brian Peters)
1.30 inches since midnight at 3340 Weather Office, Riverchase
2.08 in Downtown Tuscaloosa at the courthouse

Reports are far from complete but it appears that Marion County was hardest hit by at least three lines of severe thunderstorms that moved through today.

* A Tornado Watch continues until 9:00 tonight in parts of Central and South Alabama generally from Autauga, Dallas, Elmore, Lowndes, Montgomery, Perry and Macon Counties southward. This includes Selma, Marion and Montgomery.

* A Severe Thunderstorm Warning is in effect for Tallapoosa County in East Central Alabama until 3:45.

* A Tornado Warning continues for East-Central Marengo County in SW Alabama including the Linden area until 3:30. Radar indicated a thunderstorm maybe containing a tornado near Linden moving east at 40.

* A Flash Flood Warning is also in effect for Central Marengo County. This also includes the area of Linden. Radar indicated flash flooding in the area.

* A Severe Thunderstorm Watch covers much of Central Alabama north of the Tornado Watch.

* A Flash Flood Watch is also in effect for a good part of Central Alabama including all of the greater Birmingham area.

* Two lines of intense thunderstorms are moving across the state. The leading line is now down near Alexander City, Clanton, Marion and Demopolis. The second line extends from east of Huntsville down across Western Blount County through Western Jefferson County to south of Tuscaloosa and near Moundville and Greensboro in Hale County. This line of thunderstorms will reach the immediate Birmingham area before 4:00pm producing high winds, dangerous lightning and extremely heavy rain. Wind gusts to 51 mph was recorded in downtown Tuscaloosa when the line moved past the Tuscaloosa County Courthouse.