It should come as no surprise that August was another hotter-than-normal month in Birmingham.

That was the story for most of the summer. Some August notes:

* The average high was over 93 and that was 3 degrees hotter than normal.
* Average low was 74 which was an impressive 5 degrees above normal
* 28 of the 31 days had high temperatures 90 or higher
* 11 of the 31 days had highs 95 or higher (That is an even better indication of how hot it was)
* The hottest all month was 100 on the 8th.

* 2.69 inches was the total rainfall--a deficiency of 0.79.
* only 1/4th of an inch fell in the last 10 days

As far as weather people are concerned, summer is over since we consider June-July-August as the three summer months.

While our summer heat waves were bad enough, we escaped a long stretch of extremely high temperatures with days on end over 100.

Will try to post a rundown of the entire summer tomorrow...

The Labor Day map discussion video is on the web, and available on iTunes:

http://www.jamesspann.com/

Around this part of the great state of Alabama at the lunch hour, Birmingham is at 85 degrees. Other observations include 82 in Muscle Shoals, 84 in Gadsden, and 86 in Anniston. As usual, Tuscaloosa is running hotter with 88. I really believe the ASOS site there is in need of calibration; our SKYCAM site at the Tuscaloosa County Courthouse has been running two to three degrees cooler than the Airport for weeks now.

Just a speck of two on the radar up in northeast Alabama. A few isolated showers could form in the next few hours, mainly over the eastern half of the state. But, they should be few and far between.

THE WEEK AHEAD: A fairly strong upper trough will sweep through here tomorrow, but with only limited moisture the opportunity for beneficial rain doesn't really look good. A few showers or storms should fire up thanks to the upper dynamics, but they will be scattered. Then, the latter half of the week looks dry with temperatures at or maybe a little below normal for early September. Looks like we have a good chance of the cooler valleys of North Alabama reaching the 55 to 59 degree range both Wednesday and Thursday morning; most spots will be close to 60. A very nice preview of fall!

WEEKEND PEEK: Some moisture will begin to return on Saturday and Sunday, but with little trigger for rain it looks like any showers will be widely separated. Still no sign of widespread 90s; highs for the weekend should stay in the 80s.

TD6: This should become Tropical Storm Florence at some point within the next 24 hours. This one isn't moving very fast, and still should be hundreds of miles northeast of Puerto Rico at that time. Systems in this position rarely impact the Gulf of Mexico, and many of them recurve harmlessly into the North Atlantic. Florence might do that, but the GFS hints it might come very close to the Nova Scotia coast in about 10 to 12 days.

OTHER TROPICAL MISCHIEF: We have other good looking waves across the Atlantic basin; one in the eastern Atlantic a few hundred miles west-southwest of the Cape Verde Islands, and yet another one in the eastern Caribbean. Both might become tropical depressions in coming days.

LONG RANGE: The GFS (the 12Z run) does try to develop some kind of "back yard" home grown tropical system in the northern Gulf in about 12 days, but I sure wouldn't get worked up about tropical systems on the GFS more than 10 days in advance.

Be sure and scroll down for some great Blizzard of 93 pictures sent to us by a reader in Dallas, who lived in Pinson in March 1993. We will be back on the regular schedule tomorrow and have the first map discussion video posted by 7:00 a.m. So, who are you pulling for tonight... Miami, or Florida State? Have a great evening.

Could be a matter of only hours until TD No. 6 gets a name--Florence.

At 10 am, CDT:
* Center relocated to latitude 16.3N, Longitude 42.7W
* 1235 miles east of Lesser Antilles
* Moving NW 12
* Sustained winds 35 mph, just under the wire for tropical storm honors
* Lowest pressure 29.68 inches

The Lesser Antilles is that long string of north-to south islands that curve around the eastern Caribbean. They almost look like barrier islands for the Caribbean. There is a bunch of them but they are all small and usually offer little defense from a tropical storm or hurricane.

SIMPLE NAMES
We are getting into some storm names that will be easier to pronounce. I had to pause for a second to make sure Ernesto came our correctly. Wanted to call him Earnest-toe. Next names:

Florence
Gordon
Helene
Isaac
Joyce
Kirk
Leslie
Michael

Possible that we could get through the rest of the season with no tongue-tanglers.

BLIZZARD OF 93
Be sure and scroll down to see he great pictures from the Pinson area of the big piles of snow in the 1993 storm. Sure brings back lots of semi-old memories!

On this Labor Day, I thought I would share some pictures from the Blizzard of 1993 as we look foward to colder days ahead...

David Reed (who now lives in the Dallas/Fort Worth area) writes:













You can see more viewer stories and pictures from the Blizzard of 1993 here.

Happy Labor Day...

I will post one map discussion video later today.... should be sometime around mid-afternoon. I know most folks are away from the computer today, but I am glad you are up with us and reading the blog.

Interesting dewpoint gradient across the state this morning; the dewpoint in Tuscaloosa is 62, but if you go over to the eastern side of the state Anniston's dewpoint is 73. Guess we might see a few widely scattered afternoon showers today in the moist air over East Alabama, but there is little dynamic forcing and most places will remain dry. Highs should be in the 87 to 90 degree range, about where we should be this time of the year.

A fairly deep upper trough will sweep across the Deep South tonight and tomorrow, and could trigger a few showers, but the moisture is not very deep and a big rain event looks unlikely. Then, we will be in dry air Wednesday through Friday with lots of sun and no rain. The weekend ahead looks dry as well. Highs in the 2 to 7 day range should be in the 84 to 88 degree range.

TD6: Tropical depression six is out in the Atlantic, and could become tropical storm Florence at some point. It will be fighting dry air in the low levels, and hostile winds aloft at times, so like the systems we have seen this year it might take some time to really get its act together. The GFS (06Z run) keeps this one out to sea, recurving it well before reaching the U.S. Atlantic coast. There is some chance this could be wrong, but the pattern sure favors it. One way or another it will not be a Gulf of Mexico storm.

There is another decent wave in the eastern Atlantic we will watch as well.

I will be working a regular TV shift today, so I will have a "full length" afternoon post along with the map discussion video later today. I hope you get to stay home and relax!

On Saturday, September 4, 1965, the entire East Coast of the United States was nervously awaiting the next move of Hurricane Betsy.

Credit: NOAA Central Library Data Imaging Project

The storm had formed on August 27th, spotted by the TIROS satellite east of Barbados. Navy reconnaissance confirmed that the system had intensified into a tropical storm that night and it was named Betsy. It passed through the Lesser Antilles with little ill effect and exited the Caribbean near Puerto Rico. Once north of the islands, Betsy intensified into a hurricane and seemed destined to pass out to sea. But the Bermuda High made an unexpected westward ridging over the western Atlantic and blocked the forward progress of the storm. It spent two days wandering aimlessly before turning back toward the U.S. coast. For three days, it intensified rapidly and appeared to be headed toward the coast of the Carolinas. Winds reached 150 mph and the central pressure dropped to 27.82 inches. As high pressure intensified to the west of the hurricane, its forward progress was stopped again. It was Labor Day weekend, and vacation plans from North Carolina to the Florida Keys were suddenly on hold. On Sunday the 5th, the hurricane began to describe a small loop and started heading south toward the Bahamas. By Labor Day, September 6th, the hurricane was pounding the Bahamas, where a top wind of 147 mph was measured. The storm began turning to the west and all of South Florida was placed under a hurricane watch on the morning of the 7th. The watch was upgraded to a warning at noon and the Keys and South Florida became a beehive of activity. The powerful hurricane cross the Upper Keys near Marathon the following morning. It then moved into the Gulf of Mexico and headed toward Louisiana. Gaining strength as it moved across the Gulf, it struck southern Louisiana just before midnight on the 10th.