A large area of rain and weakening storms covers much of Northwest Alabama late this evening. It is west of I-65 and extends as far south as Walker, Fayette and Lamar Counties.

This activity will miss the Birmingham Metro area, but a strong gust line is approaching downtown and may produce gusty winds at the concert site for City Stages.

An area of moderate showers extends over southern Pickens County back into Mississippi. This activity is moving ESE and will pass into Central Alabama.

Additional showers and storms may form during the overnight and into the morning hours as a trough of low pressure passes to the north of Alabama.

On June 19, 1972, Hurricane Agnes moves ashore in the Florida panhandle as a weak Category 1 storm. The highest wind reported on the Gulf Coast was a gust to just 56 mph at Apalachicola, Florida. The $10 million in damage in the Florida Panhandle was just a drop in the bucket.

Agnes’ main damage would come two days later as the remnants of the storm brought tremendous rains and flooding to parts of the Northeast. The storm’s remnants caused tremendous rains of 10-20 inches across Maryland, Virginia, New York and Pennsylvania. Richmond, Virginia was hard hit. On June 22, Agnes’ torrential rains deluged parts of Pennsylvania. The state capital of Harrisburg was inundated and the governor’s mansion flooded.

By late evening on the 22nd, Civil Defense officials in Wilkes-Baare, PA watched the rapidly rising floodwaters of the Susquehanna River. Evacuation warnings were not sounded during the night because emergency officials thought that a nighttime evacuation would be confusing. By early morning, evacuations were ordered with the river already at 33 feet and major flooding already occurring. By late morning, warnings were frantic as the area’s worst natural disaster in history was underway. At 11:14 am, sirens sounded seven short blasts indicating that the waters were breaching the thirty eight foot dike.. Nearly 75,000 people would evacuate in the face of the rising waters. The raging waters would flood much of the city.

Hurricane Agnes' five-day romp through the Atlantic seaboard made the storm the costliest natural disaster in the United States at that time. Total damage was estimated at $3.5 billion and 134 deaths were reported from Florida to New York. Agnes would produce more damage than all tropical cyclones in the previous six years, including Camille.

Our line of showers and thunderstorms continues eastward across western Alabama this evening.

The leading edge of the line extends from western Lawrence, western Winston, extreme western Walker and central Fayette County down into northwestern Pickens County. Additional storms are over Kemper County, Mississippi, about to enter northern Sumter County.

The activity is now 55 miles west of downtown Birmingham.

The line is pushing eastward at 25-30 mph.

It is weakening slowly as it moves into more stable air over Central Alabama. The main activity is turning northeastward into Walker and Winston Counties. This along with the weakening trend may bode well for the final acts of City Stages.

A long line of showers and thunderstorms is approaching the western border of Alabama at this hour.

The solid line of storms is within about 5 miles of Colbert and Franklin County... 20 miles west of Hamilton and Vernon... and 30 miles west of Carrollton.

The activity is about 95 miles west of downtown Birmingham.

The line is moving east at about 25 miles per hour.

It could reach the Birmingham Metro area a little after 11 p.m. This should give the final acts at City Stages the opportunity to finish before the weather arrives. Great news. Of course, Brian Peters will be monitoring everything carefully for festival organizers from his perch high atop downtown Birmingham.

Very heavy rainfall... dangerous lightning... postentially damaging winds and even some small hail will accompany the line as it continues into Alabama and eastward through the evening hours.

It seems to be maintaining its strength at this hour, but it should slowly lose intensity as it heads eastward.

No watches or warnings are in effect in Mississippi or Alabama at this time. There have been a couple of tornado warnings in the Indianapolis area as well as the Green Bay, Wisconsin area.

Just sitting here in the City Stages Weather Center looking ot over Linn Park and trying to figure out what is going to happen today. What I wouldn't give for perfect insight into the near future in order to be able to specify exactly where showers will develop this afternoon. Understand that I'm not asking for much - I don't want to forecast the stock market two or three days out, I just like to be able to pinpoint the precious locations where showers will develop.

Let's look at the pattern today. We had showers again yesterday - second day in a row - across a sizable portion of Mississippi. Those showers laid down some boundaries which will probably play some role in development of showers today. Clouds leftover from that convection covered much of the northern third of Alabama setting up additional boundaries between cloud/no cloud area thus creating some temperature differences. Then there is the dew point differences with upper 60s at Tuscaloosa and Meridian while Montgomery to Birmingham area are reporting values in the lower 60s.

Aloft we have a short wave moving out of Texas phasing with another short wave coming out of south central Canada.

In this analysis, we have to peruse the sounding from BMX. There is a cap around 5,400 feet with a strength of 2.5 degrees C. Playing around with the interactive sounding reveals that a temperature of 89 degrees with a dew point of 67 could break the cap producing CAPE values around 1000.

SPC has an outlook for slight risk just northwest of Alabama running from northern Mississippi north and northeast into the eastern Great Lakes area.

So thunderstorms are likely this afternoon across eastern Mississippi, but the question remains as to whether or not those showers will get to the Birmingham area. Yeah, yeah, I am concerned about City Stages - I want to see Hermans Hermits and the Beach Boys and not dealing with weather threats. Of course, a few years ago I met Willie Nelson on stage due to the weather threats, so those threats aren't always a bad thing.

We'll see. The beat goes on (gads, another line from a song).

-Brian-

The Sunday map discussion video is on the server at:

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

I'm certainly not the music expert that James Spann is, but I think my post title comes from a line in a song - at least that is what I remember. But I can't tell you who did it or the name of the song.

So Happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there. Hope you get to enjoy your day. I'm a father and looking forward to spending a few days in Chicago with my daughter next weekend. Got to work today as City Stages will be winding up the 2006 edition of the festival with some great acts. I'm hoping the weather holds so that I can get out there to the Coca Cola stage - I even have back stage passes for Hermans Hermits and the Beach Boys.

Leftover cloudiness from thunderstorms to our west yesterday should be waning across the northern third of Alabama this morning giving way to a good deal of sunshine. Temperatures yesterday climbed back to the lower 90s, but with the dewpoints hovering around the upper 50s, the heat did not seem quite so bad. There is a sizeable contrast in dewpoints this morning with values in the lower 60s and upper 50s east of a line from Decatur to Montgomery. East of that line values are running in the lower 70s. I expect to see thunderstorms fire once again this afternoon in Mississippi, but it would seem that the dryer, more stable air from Birmingham eastward will keep storms to a minimum. All bets go off should there be some boundary out there that I just don't see at the moment.

Monday I think we'll see the chances for rain increase dramatically with most of us getting some rain - perhaps as much as 1 to 1.25 inches of rain. Rain is still a need for us, so I'll take it. My yard was sure happy with that rain last week.

The weak upper trough to our west gets here Monday as it phases with a short wave trough moving out of South Central Canada. The phased trough moves east and the Southeast US along with the whole southern tier of the country comes under high pressure aloft by mid-week. I think we'll be dry Tuesday and Wednesday returning to a pattern of scattered afternoon showers on Thursday and Friday.

The long range forecast continues to hold on to a trough over the eastern half of the country. The GFS has been relatively consistent in this though the magnitude of the trough changes from run-to-run.

Certainly happy to have you reading and watching our map discussion. Hope your Father's Day is a good one. Stay cool and God bless.

-Brian-

On the morning of Monday, June 18, 2001, it was evident that severe weather would occur over the Upper Mississippi Valley. Morning day One Convective Outlooks from the Storm Prediction Center showed a large moderate risk area over Minnesota and Wisconsin. A warm front lay across Minnesota and Wisconsin with a moderately unstable airmass to the south of the boundary. A strong upper level disturbance was approaching from the west.

Tornado watches went up by early afternoon. Siren Police Chief Dean Roland was concerned. He knew that the town’s warning siren was out of commission. It had been struck by lightning a month before and was scheduled to be repaired the very next week.

Convection finally began to fire about 6 o’clock over eastern Minnesota near St. Cloud. The southernmost thunderstorm grew into a powerful supercell storm as it approached the Wisconsin border. The National Weather Service in Duluth, Minnesota issued a tornado warning at 7:35 p.m. as the storm exploded on radar. Police Chief Roland went into action, driving around the town and announcing the warning over his cruiser’s loudspeaker. At 8:06 p.m., a tornado snaked down from the powerful storm near Grantsburg, Wisconsin, about 14 miles west of Siren.

About 8:20 p.m., Roland stopped his police car on the west end of Siren and tried to make sense of clouds converging from two directions. Suddenly, a huge white funnel burst on the scene and heavy winds began buffeting his car. He watched helplessly as the tornado headed straight for the middle of this town.

The F3 tornado damaged nearly every building and house in the town of 1,000 people. A total of three people were killed and 16 were injured along the storm’s 27 mile path.

An important lesson from the Siren storm: sirens should not be depended upon for receiving warnings. Everyone should determine what is the best source of weather information for them to monitor during potential severe weather: NOAA WeatherRadio, Commercial radio or television, etc.