These flooding pictures are from Moody, thanks to viewer Mike Wilson

Be sure and scan down to see some photographs of the Trussville flooding taken by Aaron Beard.

FLASH FLOOD WARNING FOR CULLMAN COUNTY UNTIL 9:45 PM
Officials are barricading roads in the Jones Chapel community. Do not drive around barricades! Moderate to heavy rain continues across much of Cullman County at 8:41 pm. A bridge is out on County Road 985, which is about 5 miles southwest of Jones Chapel. Also...AL 69 near Bug Tussle is "submerged"...as is County Road 36 which is just south and east of Smith Dam. EMA is trying to confirm a report of another bridge out near Bug Tussle.

Otherwise, weather slowly settling down across North and Central Alabama.

Flash Flood Warnings continue for about six counties but mainly for runoff. Rain does not seem heavy enough to cause additional flash flooding.

There was serious flash flooding earlier over North and NE Jefferson County and into Moody in St. Clair County. These notes...

.....Serious flooding along U. S. 411 in Moody. Many businesses had water in them and two or three car dealerships had water half way up the door. At a mobile home dealership, several of the mobile homes had water in them.

.....Three businesses in Trussville were flooded with eight inches of water.

.....Tornado Warning for NE Walker County between 6:21 and 6:45 pm. Later report from EMA via the NWS said that trees were down across the Jasper area.

.....Center Point Fire Department Station No. 1 was flooded for a time.

.....Weight of rain caused a collapse of part of a Center Point car dealership.

.....At one time, the Trussville City Hall was being evacuated according to the NWS.

.....Bill Murray reported 5.83 inches of rain from the storm at his home in South Trussville. This brings his total for the first 13 days of July to a whopping 12.74 inches!

.....Justin Hindman, the ABC 33/40 Weather Watcher for Trussville, reported 4.13 inches at his location between Trussville and Leeds.

.....At my location in the NE edge of Trussville, near Amerex, 2.80 inches had fallen by 8:15 tonight including 1.98 in less than 30 minutes. Accompanied by viscious lightning and cannon-sounding thunder. Water was over U. S. 11 between where I live and the intersection of Deerfoot parkway.

Thanks to Aaron Beard for these late pictures of flooding in Trussville

Seems like the weather has gone crazy across Central Alabama lat this afternoon and this evening. Here is a quick look just before 7:00 p.m. Sorry that I couldn't keep the blog up to speed, but I was on a continuous radio broadcast during the Walker County Tornado Warning.

The Walker County Tornado Warning expired on time at 6:45 p.m. The NWS is checking with the EMA Director in Walker County for the possibility of some damage.

At 7pm, the Walker County EMA reported "trees down all over Jasper>" (That report relayed from the National Weather Service)

SERIOUS FLASH FLOODING
Tremendous amounts of rain dumped over NE Jefferson County and eventually North Jefferson County late this afternoon and evening. By 7:00 p.m. this evening at my place in NE Trussville, we had measured 2.66 inches of rain including 2 inches in less than 30 minutes, but I missed the heaviest.

Bill Murray, who lives on the south side of Trussville, was drenched with 5-2/3 inches.

Justin Hineman, the 3340 Weather Watcher between Trussville and Leeds reports 4.01 inches.

Roads were closed for a time in the Roebuck-Huffman area and a car dealership in Center Point had a partial roof collapse. The National Weather Service has reissued the Flash Flood Warning for North and NE Jefferson County until 8:45.

Flash Flood Warnings are now in effect for parts of the following counties:
Winston
Walker
Cullman
Fayette
Jefferson
Shelby
St. Clair

More information as it becomes available.

4.63 inches of rain so far. Creek that feeds into Cahaba at bottom of railroad bridge. Water rising in areas around downtown. Not into businesses yet. Water flooding acrss Cherokee Drive Cedar street in downtown is a lake.

Not as bad as May 2003 yet. Downtown businesses not flooded yet

Some pea sized hail earlier. Severe lightning.

Cahaba River bridge on US 11 ok.

Now 5.08 inches. That much since I started this message (15 minutes)

Rain finally slacking a bit, but still moderate.

--From Bill Murray.....

Sorry about not being able to keep the blog current.
Severe lightning in NE TRussville made it too dangerous to be by my computer and power was in and out. Computer rebooted three times.

Flooding on U. S 11 near and East of the intersection of Deerfoot.

At my place in NE Trussville just off U. S. 11, we received 1.98 inches of rain in less than 30 minutes along with severe lightning and wind gust estimated to 40 mph.

At 6:40 pm, rain is becoming heavy again.

Flash Flood Warnings continue for parts of these counties.

St. Clair
Cullman
Shelby
Chilton
Jefferson...mainly the eastern part.

BIG CONTRAST
With over 2 inches of rain in Trussville, James Span reports a mere 0.14 at ABC 33/40 Studious in Riverchase. Steve Elliott reports only a sprinkle downtown at Birmingham Fire Station No. 1 (He's my fireman son

Strong thunderstorms are in progress in varions portions of Alabama late this afternoon and they are dumping lots of rain.

Enougfh so that the National Weather Service has issued a Flash Flood warning for...

SE Bibb County
South Chilton County

until 6 pm CDT.

This includes the towns of Clanton, Thorsby and Randolph..

In East Cullman County an estimated two inches of rain has fallen in the last three hours. The NWS posted a Flash Flood Warning for that area until 6:45 even tho rain has decreased in that area now.

It 4:50 PM, it was raining so hard in the NE part of Trussville that visibility was only about two blocks and lighting was severe. Power in and out and satellite TV out most of the time.

The Thursday afternoon map discussion video is on the server:

http://beta.abc3340.com/weather/video.hrb

Tropical downpours are developing again this afternoon... NWS Birmingham has issued a flash flood warning for Pike county down in south Alabama... and as I am typing this a new FFW is being issued for Elmore county. I expect to see a few more of those during the next few hours; some places could get an inch of rain in only 15 to 30 minutes and a gob of lightning.

Same deal tomorrow; very humid; some sun, and a few downpours.

THE WEEKEND: Heights will steadily rise, and the warmer temperatures aloft should mean fewer showers and storms, especially on Sunday. Temperatures should reach the low 90s.

NEXT WEEK: Showers should remain very widely scattered on Monday and Tuesday, followed by an increase in the number of showers and storms over the latter half of the week as a surface boundary approaches. We wonder if some moisture from Emily will move through the Texas coastal plain and up along that stalled boundary in the 7 to 9 time period.

EMILY: Still looks like a landfall around Wednesday next week along the Gulf coast of Mexico, about 100 miles or so south of Brownsville, TX. Everyone as far north as Corpus Cristi will still have to pay close attention to this; it could be a very serious storm at the time of landfall due to those very, very warm sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the western Gulf. Allen and Gilbert come to mind... I don't think this one will be as bad as those, but you sure can't rule it out.

FRANKLIN? The system in the eastern Atlantic is not any better organized, but I still expect some development over coming days, possibly the birth of tropical storm Franklin. Most of the models (but not all of them) recurve this into the open Atlantic, being no threat to land. We will keep an eye on it.

COMPUTER STUFF: Have you downloaded the free "Google Earth" program? This thing is too cool; you can fly around the nation and zoom into neighborhoods using low orbiting satellite pictures. You can almost tell if your lawn was trimmed properly when the pictures were made.

Get it here: http://earth.google.com

And, most of you know we are big Firefox browser fans here in the weather office; a new version has been released with a few security patches. Get it here;

http://www.getfirefox.com

Firefox includes "live bookmarks" so you can keep up with new posts here on the blog without having to visit the page. Tabbed browsing is a must... and Firefox has it. Of course, it is a free download.

The Thursday morning map discussion video is on the server:

http://beta.abc3340.com/weather/video.hrb

Not much change in the daily weather through Saturday; very humid, some sun at times, and scattered to numerous showers and storms. Stronger storms will produce very heavy rain for a brief time, and a shower is possible at night and during the morning as ole Dennis finally fizzles out over the Ohio River valley north of here.

Heights begin to rise Sunday and into early next week which means showers will thin out greatly by then. And, toward the middle or end of next week a surface boundary approaching from the north should bring an increase in showers and storms once again.

EMILY: Now a hurricane, Emily will move through the Caribbean over the next few days, with the NHC track putting it into the far southwest Gulf of Mexico by late Monday night of next week. Still looks like the ultimate landfall will be on the Mexican Gulf coast toward the middle of next week, but the UKMET has shifted north and takes it to near Brownsville, Texas. Our pals from Corpus Cristi south will have to keep an eye on this. If it does move north of the Yucatan, there will be no weakening from land, and with the water so warm you have to wonder if this thing might ramp up like Allen or Gilbert. I am not saying that will happen, but it could be a big, bad storm for somebody on the Mexican coast, or around the southern tip of Texas.

You also have to wonder if some of the moisture from the system, once inland, will curve up this way in about a week and stream along that stalled surface boundary.

FRANKLIN?: The wave in the eastern Atlantic doesn't look very organized this morning, but there remains some chance it will become TD6, and maybe tropical storm Franklin in a few days. All of the models are now showing a path that recurves the system into the open Atlantic, so for now this one does not look like a threat to the U.S. mainland.

Another nice wave has moved off the coast of Africa. Wonder how far in the alphabet we will run this year!