A number of Central Alabama communities received very nice (and much, much need) rain amounts this afternoon and this evening. A persistent family of thunderstorms moved from east to west and developed northward as the evening progressed.

A lot more of the storms than expected.

At 10:40 tonight, the remaining storms were rapidly running out of steam over SE Fayette and Eastern Marion County in West Alabama.

We will be anxious to check some rain amounts Tuesday morning.

This should be our last update tonight unless there is an unexpected flare up again.

If that happens, we will be here slurping the midnight coffee and losing even more sleep.

Tis part of the life of being a weather human...

...Life goes on...sunshine or storms.

The heat index is used all the time during the summer to illustrate how hot it feels outside. Meteorologists use it in many cases to drive home a really hot forecast. Thats great, but I'm not so sure that everyone actually realizes what the heat index is, or what it means. So, I figured I would throw out a few facts about this important summertime weather tool.

Anybody who watches the weather in the summer knows that the heat index combines air temperature and relative humidity to give an apparent temperature, or what it "feels like" outside. But why exactly does humidity make it feel hotter? It all has to do with the human body's cooling system. The body cools itself primarily through perspiration (sweat). The sweat that forms on the skin evaporates and carries body heat away with it, thus cooling the body down.

This functions normally when it is relatively dry outside. When it is relatively more humid outside, the sweat cannot evaporate as fast or as much, because the surrounding air is already full of water vapor. Since the sweat does not evaporate as well, the body cannot cool itself as efficiently, and this makes the body feel hotter. This can be a dangerous situation if someone stays outside for too long in this type of environment. If the body is still unable to cool itself for a period of time, its core temperature will begin to rise, and this could lead to heat stroke and eventually death.

More Heat Index and other weather stuff next time . . .

Drew McCombs
ABC 33/40 Weather Intern
abc3340wx2@gmail.com

They are also persisting later into the night than we expected.

And...a lot more of the storms than anticipated.

At 9:20 pm, the line of thunderstorms (not solid by any means) extended from near Jasper in Walker County southeastward across SW Jefferson County to along the Shelby-Bibb County line into West Chilton and Autauga County.

Moving west.

Most intense thunderstorm was over NE Bibb County and SW tip of Shelby County. That one producing much, much lightning between Montevallo and West Blocton.

On the north end of the line, the thunderstorm near Jasper is rather strong also.

Childersburg received 0.54 rain when the storms came through earlier.

Next October 20th, you will be atop Mt. Cheaha with autumn color at a peak and enjoying a prize-winning meal at the breakfast buffet. ...or...

You will be camping in Desoto State Park ...or...

You will be taking a drive up the Paint Rock Valley along the banks of the Paint Rock River.

The date was picked at random, of course, but by then, you will not even remember these high temperatures today:

96 in Anniston
97 in Huntsville and at Shelby County Airport
98 in Decatur and Muscle Shoals
99 in Birmingham, Evergreen, Jasper, Crumly Chapel
100 in Tuscaloosa, Montgomery, Cordova (7th day so far with 100 in Cordova)
101 in Alabaster

While we are losing our cool over the heat, here is some more:

109 in Lawton, Okla.
103 in Salt lake City
105 in Dallas-Fort Worth, Waco, Shreveport, Oklahoma City, Rapid City
108 in Wichita
108 in Wichita Falls, Tex.
112 in Las Vegas
107 in Phoenix
95 in Chicago
125 in Death Valley (the national high today)

October is on the way

A line of thunderstorms continues to march west across Central Alabama early tonight.

At 7:50 pm, the line extended from South Talladega and East Chilton County SE to near Montgomery and Troy. Considerable lightning in these storms and some locally very heavy rain.

Outflow boundries caused some scattered storms, small ones, to form more to the north across SW Shelby and West Jefferson into Walker County.

The heaiest rain was over West Coosa County moving west into Chilton County.

Some nice thunderstorms, producing locally very heavy rain over parts and Central and SE Alabama this evening.

At 7 pm, the main thunderstorms extended from Coosa County around Rockford southward to near Wetumpka, Montgomery and east of Troy.

Heaviest rain of all seemed to be across Elmore County including the Wetumpka area.

All storms moving WSW.

Based on estimates from Montgomery Doppler Radar, as much as 2.20 inches of rain fell in one hour over SW Russell County as the storms boomed through that area.

Earlier this afternoon there was a nice storm around Ohatchee, in Calhoun County.

The Monday afternoon map discussion video is on the web, and also available on iTunes:

http://www.jamesspann.com/

Here is a rundown on current temperautres around our SKYCAM network as I write this, shortly before 3:00:

Demopolis 98
Downtown Birmingham 97
Jasper 97
Inverness 96
Hamilton 95
Tuscaloosa 95
Gadsden 90 (a shower passed near the site within the hour)
Cheaha State Park 89

I get some angry e-mail from time to time from telling me our temperatures are too low. Even today I have had notes from people reporting temperatures like 103, 104, and even 107.

It is very difficult to measure air temperature properly on a hot summer day like today unless you have professional instruments. You pretty much have to have an aspirating fan on your thermometer this time of the year; otherwise you are simply measuring the temperature of the shelter housing the thermometer. Much like how your car is hotter inside after it sits outside in the sun for a while.

RADAR CHECK: We do have a few small, isolated showers and storms on the radar this afternoon. In fact, some of the storms around Ohatchee are producing plenty of lightning as I write this. Showers and storms are possible over the next few days, but they will remain isolated.

HEAT CHECK: I don't think temperatures will change all that much through mid-week. Highs will remain in the 95 to 100 degree range for most communities through Thursday.

SOME HEAT RELIEF: The GFS continues to advertise an upper trough forming over the eastern U.S. this weekend, which should bring a surface front down to I-40 by Saturday. This should mean coverage of showers and storms going up, and temperatures coming down a bit over the weekend. No complaints about that.

A CODE ORANGE OZONE ALERT has been issued for tomorrow by the Jefferson County Department of Heath... that means air quality should be unhealthy for sensitive groups. Ground level ozone will probably be an issue on Wednesday as well.

TROPICS HEATING UP: The disturbance east/southeast of the Carolina coast has a chance to become a tropical depression during the next 24 hours. Some of the tropical models bring the system toward the south Atlantic coast of the U.S., but others keep it nearly stationary. The developing upper trough over the eastern U.S. should carry this system out to sea by the weekend, but the short term motion remains rather uncertain.

Another nice wave is just coming off the coast of Africa, and a strong system is moving through the Northwest Atlantic... well to the east of Cape Cod; that one is becoming extra-tropical.

Sure enjoyed the visit at Alabama Power Company's headquarters today... thanks to everyone there for the great hospitality and the tour of their very impressive media facilities. I will have the next map discussion video posted by 7:00 a.m. tomorrow!

Trying to get caught up on posting weather pictures...

This damage was from a thunderstorm that hit Jasper around 1:00 Saturday (July 15). There were at least six trees down within a two block radius... a good example of a wet microburst. Thanks to Dustie Hamrick for these images:

Marco Kaschuba and Corinna Schubert came all the way from Germany to spot these Alabama thunderstorms on Saturday in Tuscaloosa County. Actually, they are here anyway for the summer, but they love storm spotting and took these shots they shared with us. Marco and Corinna paid us a visit here at our office not long ago...

I wanted to post My Tiny Corner also on the blog today, not because of Little miss Molly but because of the story from Kim Langston. Scan down for more of her report:

MY TINY CORNER OF THE WORLD: Getting more and more concerned about walking too much with my little pal forever, Little Miss Molly. This intense heat is bad on little dogs, in fact, any dog.

Instead of going a full half mile in the heat of the day, I have been reducing it to 1/4 mile and now I am going to shoot for 1/8 mile. Molly does not seem to mind, because her little tongue hangs out quickly.

When I get great resistance is when she sees one of her friends, human or dog, all the way down the half-mile track headed this way. She has a conniption fit to race ahead hoping to get a belly rub from that person.

A sobering note from Kim Langston, ABC 33/40 skywatcher, who told us how she rushed her neighbor and the neighbor’s 250+ pound Great Dane to a vet in Russellville yesterday. If they had not done that, in 20 minutes or so the dog would have been dead.

They found him completely unable to walk. They poured water all over him for a long time and then pulled him to a carport to place under a fan. Only then did they rush to a vet.

When they reached the vet, after the dog had been having problems for 4 hours, his temperature was still 103.7. The vet said 107 is knocking on death’s door. The dog named Scooby is having tests to see if there was any damage to the kidneys, etc.

This is a great lesson and warning to us all. Thanks, Kim. Life goes on.