The best time to fight a forest fire is when it is small. Unfortunately, prior to 1939, it could take a long time for crews to hike to a remote fire, and many small fires grew into large ones before they could be attacked by firefighters.

In 1934, a Forest Service Employee, T.V. Pearson, proposed that firefighters be flown to small fires and parachuted in to fight them before they could grow into major blazes. Many people thought the idea was crazy.

But n 1939, the Forest Service began an experiment with smokejumpers. Smoke jumpers are specially trained firefighters who parachute into remote areas to fight wildfires on difficult terrain.

It immediately became apparent that the program was going to be effective. The first mission for the smoke jumpers was a fire in the Nez Perce Forest in Idaho on July 12, 1940. The program quickly expanded.

On August 5, 1949, a group of fifteen smokejumpers from Missoula, Montana were dispatched to what appeared to be a routine fire in the Helena National Forest in Montana. It was a hot and dry day in when the smokejumpers landed in a canyon called Mann Gulch at about 4 p.m.

By 5:30, the firefighters were employing classic forest firefighting technique, digging a trench around the blaze as a firebreak. The fire had begun to burn to the top of the ridge, and the crew, led by Foreman Wagner Dodge thought that the fire had spent itself.

Suddenly, at 5:35 p.m., the fire began migrating down the hill and got between the men and the Missouri River. To be continued in tomorrow’s Weather Talk.

The showers and thunderstoms that occurred mostly over the south half of Alabama this afternoon have diminished...or moved westward into South Mississippi.

Only scattered lighter showers remain over the extreme south.

North Alabama still rain free.

The weather across North Alabama and South Alabama was as different as two different parts of the nation this afternoon.

Thanks to drier air over the north, showers were virtually non-existent over the upper half of the state.

But over the lower 50%, showers and thunderstorms were moving toward the west and SW. Most of them were south of the Montgomery-Demopolis-Livingston line. Some were producing heavy rain.

Back over the north, there was a pleasant "feel" to the air this afternoon because of lower dew points. From Birmingham northward into the Tennessee Valley, dew points were in the mid 60s and as low as 63 at Fort Payne. This feels better after a long stretch of 70-75 dew points.

While this is giving North Alabama a break from showers, the more moisture-laden air over the south will soon start spreading back northward and by this weekend, we will be back in a Augustish airmass.

The Wednesday afternoon map discussion video is on the server at:

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

Dry air continued in place across North Alabama this afternoon with few clouds and almost no showers. Showers were prevalent along and south of a line from Columbus, MS, to Columbus, GA. In fact, radar showed a fairly extensive coverage of showers across southern Alabama and the Florida panhandle.

Little change is forecast in our pattern. The dry air will remain in place at least one more day, but then as moisture increases a bit we'll see scattered showers dot the afternoon sky once again as we get to the end of the week and the weekend.

The tropics are becoming busier as the National Hurricane Center upgraded Tropical Depression Eight to Tropical Storm Harvey. Hurricane Hunter aircraft found winds to be a tad stronger than estimated with maximum sustained wind to 60 mph. A little additional strengthening may occur but it would not appear that Harvey will reach hurricane strength. Of course, I'm not so certain that Harvey is paying attention to the forecasts.

Further east there is a disturbed area that bears watching. Some slow development is expected over the next couple of days.

The outlook for the weekend and into next week shows little change with a summertime pattern of scattered afternoon showers. Temperatures will be about seasonal with lows in the lower 70s and highs around 90 or so.

-Brian-

At 9:30 am CDT the National Hurricane Center (NHC) has upgraded the tropical depression in the Atlantic to Tropical Storm Harvey, the eighth tropical storm of the 2005 season.

Tropical storm warnings are in effect for Bermuda as the projected track of the storm will move directly across the island.

Harvey was moving north-northeast near 10 mph and was expected to make a turn to a more northeasterly track later today.

Maximum sustained winds are near 40 mph with higher gusts, and some additional strengthening is possible during the next day or so. Tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 70 miles from the center. Bermuda can expect rainfall accumulations of 1 to 3 inches as Harvey moves by today and tonight.

Harvey is the earliest-forming eighth tropical storm on record. Only about half of all hurricane seasons since 1851 have had eight storms. The mean date of formation for the eighth storm is September 29th, so Harvey was delivered over a month and a half early.

And NHC has revised their forecast for the number of tropical systems this year.  They now expect 18 to 21 tropical storms (the mean is 10) with 9 to 11 becoming hurricanes (mean is 6), and 5 to 7 of these may become major hurricanes (mean is 2 to 3).

-Brian-

PS I'm adding this to the post. I always knew that there were a few names missing in the list of hurricane names for certain letters that are difficult to find names for. But I just counted the names and there are only 21 available - could be close this year!!

The Wednesday morning map discussion video is on the server at:

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

This is one of those times when I almost hope the GFS is wrong since there is practically no change to our weather pattern for the next two weeks. High pressure aloft will remain in place while the main storm track is well north in central Canada. Those promises of a possible cold front making it into central Alabama that the GFS made earlier this week have evaporated.

Fortuntately the good news is there does not appear to be any excessive heat likely to occur either.

Today and Thursday are likely to be much like yesterday with only isolated showers across north Alabama while showers will be likely across south Alabama and the Gulf coast. Temperatures will inch up a bit as we again get into the lower 90s.

After some drying at mid-week, moisture increases over the weekend as we return to a scattered shower regime.

The official observation site at the Birmingham airport has not had a morning low below 70 degrees since July 8th. But while the morning lows have been warm we've been lucky that our highest temperature so far this summer was only 94 on July 24 and 25.

As promised yesterday, the video ends with a picture of my dog, Dakota. She's giving me the evil eye because she just doesn't like to have her picture taken. So when she was dozing with her head on a pillow that had fallen off the sofa, I just had one of those Kodak moments. Need to introduce her to Ms. Molly one of these days.

Middle of the week day. Be sure to catch the beauty of the sky whenever you are outdoors.

-Brian-