Few Storms Ahead of Cold Front…Radar Update – 5am Friday

Good Friday morning! The cold front is taking it’s time getting here this morning, but it has finally entered our viewing area. There’s one healthy thunderstorm over Fayette and Walker County, but it’s below severe limits. Other showers and storms are developing across central Alabama. At this point, everything is well below severe limits. All of this activity is moving east at 30 to 40 mph. The blue line is the cold front position as of 5am. It will continue moving southeast and will be along I-20/59 by 6 or 7am and south of Demopolis and Clanton by 8 or 9am.

There is a little more surface based instability to our south, so we’ll have to watch radar trends through 9am incase a storm or two becomes severe. The threat of tornadoes looks pretty low at this point, but a damaging wind gust or two is possible. There’s been a strong cap (layer of warmer air above the surface) over central Alabama since yesterday. That has kept everything in check til this point. The cap is still holding across much of the area, but as the cold front moves southeast, into higher instability values, the cap will give way a bit. This will allow additional thunderstorms to develop southeast of Tuscaloosa and Birmingham. I do not see this being a major risk of severe weather at all; in-fact, there is no severe weather watch out at this time. We’re just talking about the chance of an isolated severe storm or two through 9am for our central and south Alabama counties. I’ll continue to watch radar trends and give updates on here if needed. Once the cold front passes your area, and the wind changes to the northwest, the threat of any strong to severe storms will quickly end.

The rest of the day will feature falling temperatures, with temps in the 50s by mid to late afternoon. A cool northwest breeze will make things feel a bit chilly later today and tonight.

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WVUA Chief Meteorologist Richard Scott

rscott@wvuatv.com