Watching the Thunderstorm Potential...

I have been watching the streaming severe weather coverage from my pals at ABC 33/40 in Birmingham, Alabama this afternoon. There have been nomerous tornado warnings in north and central Alabama this afternoon, but thankfully, I haven't heard of any serious damage.

The cold front which sparked the storms in Alabama is moving our area. Now, we have had a wedge in place all day with temps hovering in the upper 40s to lower 50s. However, the wedge is slowly eroding away this evening, and our airmass is slowly becoming a little more unstable. Showers will continue through this evening before ending in the pre-dawn hours Thursday. A few thunderstorms are possible, and if we see enough instability move in, a strong or severe storm can't be ruled out. I think that is only an outside chance, but I will watch things closely. If we do see storms, they would probably occur between 10pm and 2am tonight.

Another complex storm system will move through this weekend. Actually, there are growing indications that that system will dump some heavy amount of snow Sunday and Monday for interior New England back into the central Apps. Actually, a couple of recent GFS runs showed a brief changeover to snow in the Piedmont of North Carolina Sunday. That probably won't happen, but it is interesting. As it stands now, I expect rain and maybe some storms to spread in Saturday through Saturday night with rain lingering through Sunday and much cooler temperatures for the second half of the weekend as well.