Noon Update: Sunshine is Back
A drier air mass moves into the area today; we start our Tuesday off in the lower 50s, but the sky will begin to clear and we should see a mix of sun and clouds with a high in the lower 70s. A clear sky tonight means a cold night ahead.
SPACE LIGHTNING OVER EUROPE: Red sprites (a.k.a. “space lightning”) are dancing over thunderstorms in Europe. A dedicated observatory spotted the eerie red forms shooting up toward the Pleiades on April 4th, marking an unusually early start to the northern summer season for sprites.
CHILLY EARLY WEDNESDAY: Lows early Wednesday will be in the lower to mid 40s. After the cold start, we begin a warming trend as we rise to near 75 degrees with sunshine in full supply. Thursday will be dry with a sunny sky and a high in the upper 70s.
WATCHING STORMS TO THE WEST FRIDAY: A deep upper trough will begin to move out of the western states late this week, and will set the stage for a severe weather threat west of Alabama Friday. SPC has a defined a severe thunderstorm risk for much of Arkansas, North Louisiana, and East Texas. Our Friday in Alabama will be sunny and nice with highs near 80°.
STORMS RETURN NEXT WEEKEND: Rain and storms will move into Alabama as we roll into the weekend as a cold front approaches the state, but for now SPC does not have any severe weather risk defined for Saturday due to model uncertainty. For now we will forecast a good chance of rain and storms Saturday and Saturday night, ending Sunday morning. The overall severe weather threat will be pretty limited by the lack of surface based instability, but being still several days out, things can and will likely change. We are in the heart of our spring severe weather season, so any storm threat needs to be monitored. The high Saturday will be in the 70s, but then Sunday looks much cooler with yet another rather chilly unpleasant day with some places holding in the 50s all day with a gusty north wind.
ANOTHER LATE SEASON COLD SNAP?: We said it this past weekend, and it still looks like a real possibility as we head into early next week, but global models hint we could drop down into the 30s and 40s on the morning of Monday and possibly Tuesday morning.
Have a great day!
