Thursday Evening Forecast Discussion – 4:15 p.m.

Shortwave ridging will quickly move eastward and away from the area tonight. Another shortwave trough will approach the area tomorrow and a weak surface reflection should develop near the Gulf Coast around Mobile by tomorrow night. The upward motion associated with the shortwave trough and a little bit of moisture return around the surface low will allow for rain showers to move over Central Alabama from the west Friday afternoon into Friday night. Best chance for rain will be overnight Friday into Saturday morning. Maybe a slight chance for a thunderstorm for our southern counties as this happens, but both moisture return and instability appear rather lacking. Moisture should depart before it gets too cold Saturday, so not worried about any winter precipitation. High pressure settles into the southeast for the weekend, and it looks like conditions will be dry from late Saturday morning through Monday morning.

Unfortunately, it was not bad enough that we had rain and severe weather for Christmas. The 12z GFS and ECMWF are now in good enough agreement about the upper air pattern in the extended that we will have a pretty high rain chance for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day for Central Alabama. Rain chances may stick around through Wednesday too. Thankfully, only a slight chance of thunderstorms on New Year’s Day as instability is marginal and not expecting any severe weather or winter weather with the system next week.

Daniel Sparkman
dsparkman@wvuatv.com
WVUA Weather