We still expect a round of strong to severe thunderstorms tomorrow afternoon into tomorrow night.
Today, our skies have stayed clear due to a layer of dry air over Alabama, possibly left over by motion around Beryl. Below is current atmospheric precipitable water, or how much total water vapor the atmosphere contains over each given point if it was all squeezed out as rain.
A line of strong storms, out ahead of an upper-level disturbance, moved across Arkansas earlier, but the northern end of the line died out when it hit the dry air you see above, currently over northern MS, most of Alabama, and GA. We may see a few storms tonight as this disturbance comes through, but the air should stay too dry for any severe weather tonight and into tomorrow morning.
By tomorrow afternoon, southerly flow at low-levels will bring moisture in from the Gulf, and with us likely getting some sunshine, temperatures will reach the mid to upper 80s. The area of dry air mentioned above will still hang around, especially east of I-65, until after lunch.
The main upper-level storm, and the associated cold front, will move in tomorrow night. Below is the flow at 300 mb (about 25,000 feet), showing the largest trough moving to our north. That should limit the wind shear and tornado threat here. However, you can see a weaker wave south of the main wave.
(300 mb 1 am Fri)
As moisture increases, we will likely see scattered storms, mainly in NW Alabama (west of a line from Cullman to Jasper to Tuscaloosa), tomorrow afternoon. A few of these could be severe, with large hail and damaging winds.
It looks now like the main threat comes tomorrow night, as the cold front moves in and the air is still unstable. Note that CAPE (the measure of instability) is still projected to be above 2,000 J/kg ahead of the front late tomorrow night and early Friday morning. A line of strong storms will likely form over MS/TN and move through Alabama, with the potential for wind gusts over 60 mph, and maybe some large hail.
The threat for severe storms will begin an early as 3 pm in NW Alabama, with the main time window in BHM coming between 8 pm Thu and 5 am Fri, and in east Alabama between 11 pm and 8 am. We will continue to watch this for you here at Fox 6.
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