The Wednesday morning map discussion video is on the web, and also available on iTunes:
http://www.jamesspann.com/
The video is available in both Windows Media and Quicktime format... you can take your pick!
NOT AS MUCH DAYLIGHT: I am really beginning to notice the "shorter days"... the sunrise time is now 6:15. Pretty dark out there when the ole alarm clock goes off at 4:52 a.m. The sunset today will come at 7:24 p.m. On our "longest day" the sun sets at 8:01.
ANOTHER GOOD SOAKING: Scroll down for some rain reports from yesterday's storms... my total here in North Shelby County from last night was 0.51". Not far away, our SKYCAM at Inverness went over one inch, and the two day total there was three and a half inches.
Birmingham now has a rain surplus of about five and a half inches for the year (5.44"
, and most Alabama communities have seen some very generous rain in the past few weeks. I still challenge the idea of this part of Alabama (the I-20 corridor) being in a true "drought" in terms of meteorology. A drought in my opinion is a much longer term issue; we simply went through a "dry spell" early in the summer. Yes, that dry spell certainly impacted agriculture and water resources. But a true meteorological drought would have been much worse.
Our friends down in South Alabama have a great argument for drought conditions, however, where Mobile has a rain deficiency of 18.18" for the year.
TODAY: The old surface boundary seems to be just north of Birmingham this morning; the dewpoint in Decatur has dropped to 64, while the dewpoint in Birmingham is 71. Anniston's dewpoint is 74. The front should sag slowly to the south, but it has no upper support and won't move too much. I have to wonder if we have backed off on the chance of rain too much for today for the I-20 corridor... the northern third looks dry but I would not be shocked to see a few showers around here later today unless that front decides to move south of Birmingham.
TOMORROW THROUGH THE WEEKEND: The most numerous showers and storms should be found over the southern third of Alabama, with only isolated showers over the Tennessee Valley. Any afternoon showers and storms here should be pretty widely spaced. Highs will be in the 90 to 95 degree range.
NEXT WEEK: The GFS continues to back off on the strength of the system over the northern U.S. next week, and the front on the 00Z run stays north of here. So much for the idea of cooler and drier for the middle of next week. That front will probably give afternoon shower and storm production a boost during the first half of the week.
TROPICS: The tropical weather business is picking up, which it should considering we are getting into late August.
Tropical storm Debby is moving northwest toward the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and it will be fighting relatively cool SSTs, so major strengthening is not likely. All of the models recurve Debby into the westerly winds aloft before reaching Bermuda, and well east of the U.S. mainland, so this one wont be making too many headlines. Get the latest NHC advisories and graphcis over on our tropical page:
http://beta.abc3340.com/weather/tropics.hrb
The wave about 500 miles east of the Windward Islands has the potential to become a tropical depression today or tomorrow, and the models take it into the Caribbean. Seems to be in a good latitude for this to become a Gulf of Mexico storm. This one will be fighting the dry Sahara dust layer (like all systems this year); it will be very interesting to see if it can get its act together. Watch the video and you can see model output on that one.
Disturbed weather continues in the northwest Caribbean and the southern Gulf, but no sign of any surface feature with that, and no organization.
ABC 33/40 SKYWATCHERS: Thanks to all our Skywatchers for the excellent reports the last few days. This volunteer team reports weather conditions to us in real time with instant messaging. Despite the great radar technology we have, you can't beat a pair of trained eyes looking at a storm.
We would like to add more Skywatchers to our team, especially in rural areas. Learn more about the program here:
http://beta.abc3340.com/external.hrb?p=skywatchers&w=1
JOIN THE PARTY: Great weather stories and info on our sister site, WeatherParty.com:
http://weatherparty.com/
Register and you can be an editor! Submit and vote on links. Very cool stuff.
I will have the next map discussion video posted by 3:30 this afternoon!
http://www.jamesspann.com/
The video is available in both Windows Media and Quicktime format... you can take your pick!
NOT AS MUCH DAYLIGHT: I am really beginning to notice the "shorter days"... the sunrise time is now 6:15. Pretty dark out there when the ole alarm clock goes off at 4:52 a.m. The sunset today will come at 7:24 p.m. On our "longest day" the sun sets at 8:01.
ANOTHER GOOD SOAKING: Scroll down for some rain reports from yesterday's storms... my total here in North Shelby County from last night was 0.51". Not far away, our SKYCAM at Inverness went over one inch, and the two day total there was three and a half inches.
Birmingham now has a rain surplus of about five and a half inches for the year (5.44"
, and most Alabama communities have seen some very generous rain in the past few weeks. I still challenge the idea of this part of Alabama (the I-20 corridor) being in a true "drought" in terms of meteorology. A drought in my opinion is a much longer term issue; we simply went through a "dry spell" early in the summer. Yes, that dry spell certainly impacted agriculture and water resources. But a true meteorological drought would have been much worse.Our friends down in South Alabama have a great argument for drought conditions, however, where Mobile has a rain deficiency of 18.18" for the year.
TODAY: The old surface boundary seems to be just north of Birmingham this morning; the dewpoint in Decatur has dropped to 64, while the dewpoint in Birmingham is 71. Anniston's dewpoint is 74. The front should sag slowly to the south, but it has no upper support and won't move too much. I have to wonder if we have backed off on the chance of rain too much for today for the I-20 corridor... the northern third looks dry but I would not be shocked to see a few showers around here later today unless that front decides to move south of Birmingham.
TOMORROW THROUGH THE WEEKEND: The most numerous showers and storms should be found over the southern third of Alabama, with only isolated showers over the Tennessee Valley. Any afternoon showers and storms here should be pretty widely spaced. Highs will be in the 90 to 95 degree range.
NEXT WEEK: The GFS continues to back off on the strength of the system over the northern U.S. next week, and the front on the 00Z run stays north of here. So much for the idea of cooler and drier for the middle of next week. That front will probably give afternoon shower and storm production a boost during the first half of the week.
TROPICS: The tropical weather business is picking up, which it should considering we are getting into late August.
Tropical storm Debby is moving northwest toward the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and it will be fighting relatively cool SSTs, so major strengthening is not likely. All of the models recurve Debby into the westerly winds aloft before reaching Bermuda, and well east of the U.S. mainland, so this one wont be making too many headlines. Get the latest NHC advisories and graphcis over on our tropical page:
http://beta.abc3340.com/weather/tropics.hrb
The wave about 500 miles east of the Windward Islands has the potential to become a tropical depression today or tomorrow, and the models take it into the Caribbean. Seems to be in a good latitude for this to become a Gulf of Mexico storm. This one will be fighting the dry Sahara dust layer (like all systems this year); it will be very interesting to see if it can get its act together. Watch the video and you can see model output on that one.
Disturbed weather continues in the northwest Caribbean and the southern Gulf, but no sign of any surface feature with that, and no organization.
ABC 33/40 SKYWATCHERS: Thanks to all our Skywatchers for the excellent reports the last few days. This volunteer team reports weather conditions to us in real time with instant messaging. Despite the great radar technology we have, you can't beat a pair of trained eyes looking at a storm.
We would like to add more Skywatchers to our team, especially in rural areas. Learn more about the program here:
http://beta.abc3340.com/external.hrb?p=skywatchers&w=1
JOIN THE PARTY: Great weather stories and info on our sister site, WeatherParty.com:
http://weatherparty.com/
Register and you can be an editor! Submit and vote on links. Very cool stuff.
I will have the next map discussion video posted by 3:30 this afternoon!
on August 23, 2006, 6:37 am
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