Saturday (High 63, Low 41): Mostly sunny and mild. Light northerly winds.
Sunday (High 70, Low 39): Sunny. Cool in the morning, mild in the afternoon.
Monday (High 75, Low 48): Mostly sunny. An isolated shower is possible at night.
Tuesday (High 73, Low 59): Partly cloudy with a 20% chance of showers.
Wednesday (High 60, Low 47): Partly to mostly cloudy with a 40% chance of showers.
Thursday (High 59, Low 46): Partly cloudy with a 30% chance of showers.
Friday (High 65, Low 51): Mostly cloudy with a 50% chance of showers and thunderstorms.
The National Weather Service in Nashville has shared the highest wind gusts from the Tennessee side of the border from today.
And the National Weather Service office in Huntsville has completed two preliminary tornado surveys in Jackson County, both tornadoes rated F-1.
This seems timely: The NWS is pushing awareness of spring weather safety.
But if you really want to learn more about safety or just storms (for fun), you need to take a SKYWARN class. They are free, and if you miss out on an in-person class, you can still take one online.
Well we sure did have a humdinger of a storm system today. It was windy and stormy in the Tennessee Valley today, with widespread damage and power outages, even some injury. And I saw where one person died down around Talladega when a tree fell on the person's vehicle. The High in Cullman was 73 after a morning Low of 59. Jasper got up to 77 after a morning Low of 61. Both cities have numerous trees down, by the way, and I believe I saw where there was structural damage to a roof in downtown Jasper. The damage will be hard for even the best experts to sort out around here over the weekend and perhaps into next week. I imagine it will be challenging to determine how much was thunderstorm wind damage, a few tornadoes that spun up quickly and did not last all that long, and how much was damage from the strong gradient winds, the reason they issued that "Wind Warning" a day in advance. Major thanks and kudos to the National Weather Service offices and Storm Prediction Center, as well as of course the media including things like blogs and social media, for getting the message out with this. I think a lot of people paid attention and were okay because of good communication this time. The reports from Haleyville did not show up this go-round, so will take a look at Fort Payne. That's pretty close to where they had a confirmed tornado today around Henagar and Ider, Pigsah, Section may be where it started. Sometimes I can't visualize all the maps in my head and remember where everything happened. But like I say, the surveys will be done, and this will get sorted out. Anyway the High in Fort Payne was 72 and the Low was 59.
Heard from a couple of families who were without power for several hours today. I zonked about an hour or two after the squall line exited Northeast Alabama. Fortunately did not lose power or have any damage, but the wind was sort of roaring as it passed through my location. It was not as bad as a tornado's roar (which I've heard before, an F-3 at night), but it would have taken someone aback who did not get a warning beforehand and did not know it was coming. I took shelter in advance of it and ran my laptop on battery while it came through. So it looks like two preliminary surveys have already been completed, from Section to Dutton, E/F-1 tornado. And the tornado that hit around Pigsah, also in Jackson County, rated E/F-1 for now. Again I thank the local National Weather Service offices for their hard work. And extend that to other people like emergency workers, cops, and anybody who tries to mitigate the suffering that these events can cause if people don't have good information and a safe place to be. Those are an awful lot of damaging wind reports for one day.
Those storms are long gone, and the dangerous winds have died down around here. The cold front will finish pushing through the area tonight. And I will not miss it.
Tomorrow the weekend gets off to a much more benign start, with high pressure moving in from the Mid-South. Winds should be light (about 5-10 miles per hour) from the North. We will be mostly sunny and we'll start the day near 41 degrees, warm up to about 63 in the afternoon.
High pressure continues to move through the region on Sunday and we will be sunny, High rebounding to near 70. The morning Low should be about 38-39 with good radiational cooling possible overnight again.
Then on Monday, the High shifts to the Mid-Atlantic coast. We'll have some moisture return and have some clouds come back. If we see any rain at all, I think it'll be at night, and even then the chance is very low. Should see a High in the mid-70's and a Low in the upper 40's.
Then on Tuesday we have a weak cold front dipping through here. Actually the timing is more like Monday night and Tuesday. Looks like this will stall out around Mobile and then dissipate. But we could see isolated showers on Tuesday, maybe even something Monday night. Chance of rain is about 20%. Probably not enough unstable air for thunderstorms, and this activity looks isolated anyway. High should be in lower 70's and Low in upper 50's.
Then another system from the Plains will bring us enough moisture to support scattered rain on Wednesday. Rain chance should be about 40%. Behind that front with such moist air, expecting a High up near 60 and a Low in the mid-to-upper 40's.
Most of the rain will stay out to our West on Thursday but still enough moisture here to justify a 30% rain chance. High in upper 50's, Low in mid-40's.
Then on Friday it looks like we could be dealing with organized thunderstorms again. For right now, nothing looks concerning for severe weather. This time of year, you do have to keep an eye on every system just in case. But for now this looks like general rain and storms. And even here I'm going to cap off the rain chance at 50%. Should see a High in the lower-to-mid-60's and a Low up near 50. At least that is my best estimate, second-guessing MOS and local forecasts and going with my own personal hunch for the moment. It is seven days out, and with a setup like this, nobody really knows, just have to watch trends.
And it looks like we may get an average of another inch of rainfall over the next seven days.
Thanks for reading. Hope you and your loved ones are well after the wild ride today.
No comments:
Post a Comment