Very nice lightning shot tonight from Brandon Harris of Jacksonville:

Strongest storms are now down in South Alabama where a line of storms extended fron Montgomery southwestward to near Monroeville.

Only a few remain over North Alabama...mainly over the NE part of the state,

This will probably be the last update unless something really flares up again.

As you can see from all of the posts below, our viewers were really working hard on digital photography tonight!

These pictures are from Bobby Best... his note is below:

"Here's a little bit of information, also, on the area that the storm is passing over....... The pics were taken on "The Edgil Grove Road" today.... Several years ago in 2002; the F-3 torando that hit Carbon Hill, after hitting the small town of Carbon Hill so hard, moved into the Saragoosa community.... It wound up touching down an an adjecent road and continued on it's path Eastwardly...... It's not uncommon for the area to have weather systems go thru this same area, that today's pics were taken from area........... That being "The Redmill/Crossroads Communities" that are both located 7 miles North of Jasper "proper"....."

Great shot of mammatus clouds this evening from Jan Troutman in Berry, in Fayette County:

From ABC 33/40 Online Weather Watcher Vic Bell:

Carrie Williams sent this image to us:

"I got a picture of this storm while heading SE on 280 in Inverness this afternoon.  This is looking to the right of the highway.  A few minutes before I took this photo it was looking like Garfield but it got all stretched out. "

Thunderstorms across North and Central Alabama have greatly diminished. Strongest ones just before 8 pm were from East Marengo County eastward to Dallas County.

And a storm just north of I-20 near Anniston. 3340 Skywatcher reported a quick 0.18 of rain at Oxford from this storm with lots of lightning.

Almost an inch (0.91) of rain was reported from the Gadsden Steam Plant this afternoon.

It was hotter than expected today. A few sample highs:

96 at Birmingham Airport
99 at Tuscaloosa
97 in Montgomery
96 in Pinson

(Be sure and scroll down and check out thos great weather puctures)

Ernesto never got his act together to become a powerful storm after leaving Cuba. He will make landfall in the Florida Keys in a few hours and onto the Extreme South Florida mainland around midnight.

He never grew stronger this afternoon.

THE BASIC FACTS AS OF 7 PM CDT
Center was located 70 miles south of Miami
Movement...NW at 13 mph
Sustained winds...45 mph
Minimum pressure...29.65 inches
Hurricane Watches for Florida discontinued
Tropical Storm warnings continue
Tornado Watch in effect for South and East Central Florida (spinoff tornadoes)

Again, look at this link: http://beta.abc3340.com/weather/tropics.hrb

The Public Advisory has much information
Look at Forecast Track and you will see little or no change in the NHC track forecast

SPOT REPORTS FROM FLORIDA AT 8 PM EDT
Orlando...mostly clear...wind SE 12 mph
Marathon...rain...north 16, gusts to 24
Key West...rain...north 13
Long Key...north 29, gusts 32
Fort Lauderdale...rain...east at 17
Miami...rain...east 18, gusts 25
Homestead...rain...east 21

You can see that wind is not the main concern. Instead, extremely heavy rain will be a newsmaker near the path of Ernesto as he continues north.

These shots were from today's storms in Morgan County. Mike Wilhelm took the images at Decatur...

Thanks to Jay Fuller for these images of today's storms over Smith Lake: