We are starting the day off with a few clouds over Central Alabama, but our main focus continues to be over the northern Gulf of Mexico as Tropical Storm Barry has now started to make the turn towards the Louisiana coastline. Maximum sustained winds have remained at 50 MPH throughout the overnight hours but now is moving to the west-northwest at 5 MPH. Nearly all of the convective activity is located on the southern half of the circulation, including not showing an inner convective core. This is causing Barry to not have the typical tropical system look.
At this point, there is a very small chance of Barry becoming a hurricane, but some strengthening should occur as the center will be passing over very warm water. Northerly shear and dry air being pulled in may inhibit much strengthening. The forecast path is relatively the same as it has been since the 4:00 pm update on Thursday. Landfall is expected to occur Saturday morning with the center moving northward just west of the Mississippi.
With the forecast track relatively unchanged, we continue to be close enough to the center that we’ll have a Marginal Risk of severe storms throughout the weekend, with the main threat being from the tropical type brief spin-up tornadoes. Saturday’s risk area is roughly south and west of a line from Geiger (Sumter Co.) to Greensboro to Orville (Dallas Co.). Sunday’s risk area is roughly west of a line from Arley (Winston Co.) to West Blocton (Bibb Co.) to Orrville (Dallas Co.).
Rainfall totals are expected to be in the 1.00-2.50 inch range for locations east of I-65 and up to 2.50-4.00 inches along and west of I-65 through Tuesday morning. Most of our rainfall will come on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Major flooding issues are not expected, but some localized ponding and flash flooding is possible in urban and other poor drainage areas.
So our weather for today continues to be active as we’ll have Barry sending tropical moisture up into the southern parts of the area while a stalled frontal boundary off to our north will be a focusing point for scattered to numerous showers and storms in the northern parts of the area. Much of the activity will develop during the late morning through the afternoon hours with the main heating of the day, but nearly all of that activity will diminish this evening and into the late night hours. Added cloud cover and rain should keep our afternoon highs in the upper 80s to the lower 90s, with overnight lows in the lower to mid-70s. A few of the storms today may become strong but there is no threat of organized severe weather across Central Alabama today.
I’ll have another update or two out later this morning.
Central Alabama Weather 