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Several thunderstorms hanging tough tonight. A 9:35 pm list:

* SW Tuscaloosa County, west and SW of the city of Tuscaloosa.
* North of downtown Birmingham
* NE Jefferson County east of I-65 and west of Trussville
* Near Montgomery

REPORTS
* At 7:41 pm, trees down two miles east of Millport in South Lamar County.
* At 7:51 pm, Tallapoosa County EMA Office reports gust of 45 mph.

Storms are moving slowly northward.

Today was our hottest day so far this year and in many areas, the hottest in six years. Here we go with a list and this may not be all of the reports:

92 at Orange Beach
95 in Cullman and Crossville
96 in Mobile and Muscle Shoals
97 in Albertville, Clay
98 in Decatur, Huntsville, Vinemont, Northport, Shelby County Airport
99 in Montgomery, Troy, Anniston, Fort Payne, Meridianville, Inverness, Demopolis
100 in Auburn, Birmingham, Dothan, Evergreen, Tuscaloosa, Nauvoo, Crumly Chapel, Munford, Leeds
101 in Pinson, DeSoto State Park, Trussville
103 in Hueytown, Cordova, Riverside

EXTRA NOTES
* The 97 in Clay was the highest since 100 on September 5, 2002
* Cordova had the hottest day in six years
* Today was the first time the official Birmingham Airport temperature had reached 100 since August 29, 2000 when it was also 100.

LAST SIX TIMES IT WAS 100 OR HIGHER IN BIRMINGHAM
100 today
100 on August 29, 2000
102 on August 22, 2000
102 on July 12, 2000
100 on July 14, 2000
101 on July 15, 2000
103 on July 19, 2000

The all time high for Birmingham is 107 on July 29, 1930
It was 106 on June 29, 1931
It was also 106 on September 5 and 6 in 1925

That September 1925 heat wave was brutal before the days of air conditioning. It bought the highest temperature ever recorded in Alabama, a blistering 112 on September 5, 1925 at Centreville.

Day 10, our best chase day . . .

We had a nice night in North Platte as we were able to meet up with some of our friends who were on a separate chase. It was refreshing to have some new people to hang out with, since some in the group were starting to get tired of others in the group . . . The hotel was pretty packed as it seemed like a large number of other chasers had converged in the area for the chance to see some decent storms (which had been few and far between for weeks).

We headed east and then eventually made it to Columbus, Nebraska, where we hoped we would be in the best position. The setup for storms looked the best it had looked all trip. Dewpoints were high enough, the cap wasn't too strong, we had some low-level convergence, and best of all we had some upper level support: a shortwave trough was ejecting out over the Northern Plains. We all felt that would be enough to see a little of what we came to see.

Storms began to fire early in the afternoon, and around 4 we started to head west towards some cells that looked fairly strong and isolated. We were still in the process of trying to position ourselves so that we had the best chance of seeing a tornado if one formed, when we spotted a suspicious looking cloud in a rain free area of the storm. Our radar showed a shear marker in the area, and before long most agreed that we were seeing a wall cloud. Finally, we had a chance of seeing a tornado! We pulled over and everyone got out to take pictures. The storm was in the middle of a vast field, with no houses in sight, so we hoped we might get a brief glimpse of a tornado. It didn't happen. After several minutes the wall cloud slowly faded away.

We headed south towards another storm, as the first one was weakening, but, by this point, the storms were beginning to form into a line. This hurt our chances of seeing a tornado significantly, even though we did see another suspicious low cloud ( the jury is still out on whether it was a wall cloud or not). Because we didn't expect to see anything but a strong storm at this point, we positioned ourselves in front of the squall line that had formed in order to experience the gust front. The dust kicked up from the gust front was incredible and it was easy to see with the sun setting. After the leading edge moved through the core of one of the cells moved right over us, but we did not have any hail at all.

Even though this ended up being our best chase day of the trip, everyone was a little disappointed with what we saw. It seemed like we had come all the way out to the Plains to see something we could see anywhere in the Southeast. I was still happy because we had seen something, and I got to see my first wall cloud (you would think I would have saw one already since I've lived in Alabama my whole life).

Next time . . . the trip winds down . . .

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

Not many in progress but these were the main ones as of 7:30 pm:

* SW Shelby County between Calera and Montevallo. This has been a persistent, slow-moving storm but it is gradually going downhill as it moves slowly NW. A 3340 blog reader reports over two inches of rain at Calera since 4:45 this afternoon.

* Central Tuscaloosa County along U.S 43 about 10 miles north of Northport.

* South Lamar County midway between Vernon and Millport.

* SE Lamar County east of Millport

The NWS issued a SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING for South Lamar County but it expired at 8 pm. The South Lamar County storm was moving NW slowly at about 5 mph.

Extreme South Tallapoosa County mostly south of Lake Martin.

They will continue moving slowly northward.

This brief statement from NWS/Birmingham:

ALC073-220013-
JEFFERSON AL-
703 PM CDT WED JUN 21 2006

...THE FLASH FLOOD WARNING FOR EAST CENTRAL JEFFERSON COUNTY IS
CANCELLED...

THE THUNDERSTORM THAT PROMPTED THE WARNING HAS DISSIPATED...ENDING
THE THREAT FOR FLASH FLOODING IN JEFFERSON COUNTY.

The Severe Thunderstorm Warning for North Chilton and South Shelby Counties expired at 6:15. There is still some heavy rain in the Calera-Shelby area of South Shelby County. However, another small but strong thunderstorm has developed further north near Cahaba Heights producing very heavy rain. Based on that storm, the NWS has issued a Flash Flood Warning for East-Central Jefferson County until 8:00 p.m. Some areas that will probably be affected:

Cahaba Heights
Homewood
Vestavia Hills
Possibly downtown Birmingham
the area around Birmingham Airport

The NWS believes that 2 to 3 inches of rain could fall from this slow-moving thunderstorm mainly east of I-65 and west of Highway 280 south of downtown Birmingham through 8:00 p.m.

The Severe Thunderstorm Warning for extreme North Chilton County and extreme Southern Shelby County expired at 6:15. However, a cluster of strong thunderstorms continues over extreme South Shelby County from the community of Shelby over to near Calera. They are moving slowly northward, however, they are below severe limits.

The thunderstorms are extremely scarce across North and Central Alabama at this time. Only a tiny percentage of the Alabama landscape is getting rain and the storms will fade away rather quickly.

A few strong thunderstorms developed in Central Alabama late this afternoon.

The National Weather Service-Birmingham issued a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for North-Central Chilton County and South-Central Shelby County in Central Alabama until 6:15.

This was a slow moving storm located about 6 miles NE of Jemison, which is in North Chilton County or about 11 miles SW of Columbiana.

Moving NW slowly at 5 mph moving in the general direction of Calera.

The official high at the Birmingham Airport today was 100. As best we can tell, the last time we hit 100 (or higher) was on August 29, 2000... almost six years ago!

We were two degrees shy of the record today (102 in 1933), and 11 degrees above the average high of 89.

Whew..