Front Advancing Slowly Southward

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

Wow, what a day it was yesterday. ABC 33/40 was one of the sponsors of the Buck Creek Festival held in Old Town Helena, so I was there all day emceeing some of the events and chatting with folks. But I kept my eye on radar to keep the decision makers informed about impending weather. The Storm Chaser became a real mobile command post for weather information for the event. While the morning rain dampened attendance a bit, the event benefitted from that rain with temperatures that only climbed into the middle 70s. So the cool air combined with great local talent provided festival goers with a wonderful afternoon and evening. It's really a pleasure to get to assist with this event and meet great people like Dollar Bill from "The Bull" and members of the various bands that performed. Thanks, too, to all the people who stopped by the Chaser to peek at the van.

Our weather will be improving today and I expect to see some sunshine before the afternoon is over. Drier air was filtering into North Alabama as evidenced by dew points in the mid 40s. The overall upper air pattern with a strong closed low over the eastern half of the country will not change much through Monday so we can expect to see patched of clouds and perhaps some sprinkles.

The pattern begins to undergo a change Tuesday as that closed low ejects northeastward and fills or weakens. The trough remains anchored across the Southeast US so we'll continue to see periods of clouds along with some patchy rain, but rainfall amounts are not expected to be significant.

By the end of the week, the pattern flattens out a bit which should allow temperatures by Friday to return to seasonal values with highs around 80 degrees. But the trough over the eastern half of the US will continue so we'll see a slight warm-up but nothing extraordinary.

In fact, the pattern of a trough over the eastern half of the country with the resultant northwesterly flow pattern is forecast to persist through much of the latter half of May. This should keep up relatively mild with normal to below normal temperatures which will help to keep the air conditioning bill down.

We're getting some great video off the new SkyCam network which will continue to expand over the next several weeks. I'm hoping to get an opportunity to go on another install and bring you the story in pictures as our network expands. This is so great to be able to bring you live pictures of the weather in a location near you.

Happy Mother's Day to everyone. Be sure to tell Mom how much you love her! Have a great Sunday and a great upcoming week. God bless.

-Brian-