Summer Breeze

The Thursday morning map discussion video is on the server:

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

The headline to this post is a little misleading; there won't be much of a breeze at all today. That is simply one summer song I didn't mention on my list of great summer songs from the top 40 radio era (mostly the 60s and 70s) on my afternoon post yesterday (scroll down to read it)... thats to a reader for reminding me of the song "Summer Breeze" by Seals and Crofts. What a great tune...

I got an MP3 player for my birthday a few weeks ago, I will have to download that song and put it on the playlist. Love being to download any song for only 88 cents... the music industry has finally figured out that people will pay for downloads when the price is right. Walmart has songs for 88 cents, ITunes and many others are 99 cents. Maybe I need to send Walmart a bill for the plug here! Don't forget, if you have an MP3 player you can get the latest forecast twice daily with our podcast updates...

Back to the subject... the hot weather still looks like the big story today as the mercury will soar into the low 90s. I still think storms this afternoon will be pretty isolated.

We will watch to keep an eye on developments up north where a cold front will trail a powerful storm system moving into Canada. Sooner or later, a batch of storms will move into north Alabama ahead of that front; the models don't agree exactly when that will happen. For now in our forecast package I have the best chance of storms late tomorrow and tomorrow night. We will probably have to adjust the timing; we will simply have to watch developments on radar. I will not be shocked if the storms produce strong winds in scattered spots, and a few severe thunderstorm warnings might be required.

THE WEEKEND: Where the front stalls out will have a big affect on the coverage of scattered storms on Saturday. For now I am thinking the front stops near Huntsville, and then fizzles out by Sunday. So, we will continue to broadbrush a routine summer forecast through the Fourth of July, with highs near 90 degrees and the risk of a passing thunderstorm each afternoon in scattered spots. We don't see anything that suggests fireworks shows will be rained out. In fact, the GFS actually is showing drier air slipping in here slowly on Sunday and Monday, although I don't buy it right now.

TROPICS: Pretty quiet in the Atlantic basin right now, and looks like there will be no tropical storm woes for the U.S. coast during the holiday weekend. The GFS does develop some kind of tropical system well to the east of the U.S. Atlantic coast in the July 8-11 time frame, but it doesn't get close to the coast...

Will be back in the office with the next map discussion video online by 3:30 or so....