High temperatures will climb into the upper 70s Thursday as clouds increase in advance of the next storm system that will bring us rains for Friday.
The showers will likely start in parts of Northwest Alabama just after midnight Thursday night as the cold front moves into the Mid-South, where enough energy will still exist to cause some strong t-storms in West Tennessee.
Though a few of us might see an isolated downpour, most of us will see a passing shower under clouds skies before the clouds break during the afternoon in the Shoals, early evening in North Central Alabama and the late evening in Northeast Alabama.
Saturday and Sunday look spectacular. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we’ll see temperatures back into the lower 80s with increasing chances for showers and thunderstorms.
As Autumn continues to arrive, the colors of the season will begin to show. Share what you are seeing by sending your fall foliage and other weather pictures and video with the Storm Force 31 team by becoming a member of the team yourself.
Simply become a part of MyWAAY. To register, for free, or to learn more simply click here.
Remain Weather Aware, check the 7-Day Forecast for Details, and follow us on Twitter @ stormforce31, and on facebook as well.
Brad Huffines, Chief Meteorologist / Storm Force 31
Tommy Bice from the Greenery Tells Us How to Plant Tulips
Our friends from The Greenery have been hard at work transforming the WAAY 31 Water Garden into a Fall garden! Pansies are being planted now, but it’s also time to plant bulbs!
Tommy Bice from The Greenery gave us a step-by-step lesson (see video below) to ensure we will have beautiful tulips this Spring!
Dig a trench about 6 inches deep. Place the tulips with the pointed side directly up. That’s where the bloom will emerge. Put a shallow layer of dirt on the bulbs. Sprinkle the area with bulb fertilizer. Have the thin layer of soil will prevent the fertilizer from burning the bulbs. Cover the rest of the trench with soil.
In our Water Garden, The Greenery is placing Pansies on top of the Tulips for the Fall/Winter season. Then this Spring we’ll have beautiful Pink Diamond Tulips.
Here is Tommy explaining the process with Meteorologist Gary Dobbs.
If you can’t see the video simply click on the title of this post above or click here)
*Another note, Tommy informs us all Tulips sold in our region are ‘pre-chilled’ and ready for planting.
A Taste of Autumn for our Water Garden
At WAAY-TV, we are so proud of our Backyard Water Garden that we show it off several times a day by providing our forecasts in our living outdoor weather set. Built by Lee Vought at Vought Water Gardens, and Tommy Bice at The Greenery, the water garden is gorgeous and one of the best looking backdrops in all of local live television.
Here is a slideshow of pictures taken by WAAY-31 News Director Keith Lowhorne of the Water Garden as and after Tommy Bice and staff updated our Autumn look. Enjoy.
Brad Huffines, Chief Meteorologist / Storm Force 31
As the next few days lie before us, the first 3 days of Autumn 2009/2010, it will feel like anything but autumn. The high temperatures will remain in the middle to upper 80s with the heat index just under 90 at the warmest times of the mid-afternoons. Each day will bring with it a slight chance for a few isolated thunderstorms.
But for Saturday, change will be in the air. A strong cool front will be moving into the Tennessee Valley, and into an environment of very high humidities with enough upper level instability to create an environment for a few strong to severe thunderstorms. Depending on the timing of these storms, some could threaten anyone outside when this storm system passes. Remain weather aware on Saturday.
On Sunday, a slight cool down will make it feel a little cooler, with high temperatures in the lower 80s, potentially the upper 70s before the air cools down even more Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, when the real Autumn-FEELING air arrives at that time.
Remain Weather Aware, check the 7-Day Forecast for Details, and follow us on Twitter @ stormforce31, and on facebook as well.
Brad Huffines, Chief Meteorologist / Storm Force 31
Autumn will officially begin here in the Tennessee Valley this afternoon at 4:18 PM. Even though it has been tough to get a “Fallish” feel here in the Valley, some in the nation have jumped right to winter.
The first snow of the season is flying across the portions of the Colorado Rockies above 6,500 feet. The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Watch for tonight into Wednesday afternoon. Snowfall 6″-18″ is possible into Wednesday with some blowing and drifting, too, especially over the Palmer Divide. Snowfall, as of noon CT Tuesday, has been relatively light with the highest report being 5″ in Stonewall, CO. The storm that is bringing this snow will intensify overnight into Wednesday morning and heavier snow is expected. Here is a live look at I-70 at Vail Pass where snow has already fallen and more is forecast.
This weekend is the annual fly-in at Moontown Airport, off of U.S. 72 in Brownsboro. If you are intrigued by aviation like I am, this is a real treat. Several planes are based at Moontown airport including gliders, biplanes and vintage WW II aircraft. In addition, the annual fly-in brings hundreds of planes to fly-in from all over the Southeast.
My family and I attended the fly-in on Saturday and had an absolutely wonderful time. A special thank you goes out to pilot Alan Corkrell who kindly provided this aviation enthusiast with a flight in his Russian Yak-52 aircraft. In fact, he and two fellow pilots, Steve Brown and Peter Van Staagen provided me with a thrill by flying a 3 Yak formation.
The YAK was a Russian training aircraft used to train fighter pilots. The aircraft itself looks similar to older WW II fighter aircraft. These aircraft; however, are much newer 1980’s models. Moontown Airport is currently home to four of these aircraft with a fifth on the WAAY. Only 100 or so are currently found in the United States.
In addition to the YAKs, you can see WW II ear Stearman Biplanes. Only about 1000 remain in flying service and three are participating at this year’s annual fly-in. Have you ever dreamed of flying in an open cockpit aircraft just like the pioneers of aviation did? Well, you are in luck if you head out to Moontown. You can purchase tickets to ride in one of the Stearmans, a real thrill!
And last, but not least, if you have youth who would love to go for a flight that is also possible. The Young Eagles are providing FREE flights to youth ages 8-17. Volunteer pilots are donating their time, aircraft and fuel so youth can enjoy the thrill of flying. Free flights will be offered again all day Sunday, weather permitting.
If you can not make it to the annual fly-in, don’t worry. The airport hosts a fly-in breakfast every month during the 3rd Saturday and you are all welcome to attend. Happy Flying!
This weekend there are lots of events that are likely to draw thousands of people. As you head outside for any of these events, check the forecast before you go. And of course, being the Full-Service Television Meteorology Kinda Place We Are, the video below is just for you. Okay to be fair, it was recorded LIVE from WAAY-31 News at 5 on Friday and I share it here for you.
We are trading one unsettled weather system for another. As the BIG MEANDERING SYSTEM has been spinning across the Southern Plains and Lower Mississippi Valley for the past several days, there is another one seemingly poised to take its place.
SLOWING Cold Front
A mass of upper level instability is developing in Western Canada and it will be diving southward. As it does, we are facing another possibility of unsettled weather with scatterings of showers and thunderstorms mostly in the afternoon and evening hours of the middle and end of next week. If that is the case, the unsettled weather might dovetail with Big Spring Jam. Worth Watching.
Remain Weather Aware, check the 7-Day Forecast for Details, and follow us on Twitter @ stormforce31, and on facebook as well.
Brad Huffines, Chief Meteorologist / Storm Force 31
With heavy rains reported in many parts of Lauderdale, Franklin, Colbert and Colbert County, there were areas of flooding closing numerous roads and causing many more headaches in the Shoals by all those who were trying to navigate around the flooded roads. For a list of those storm reports, click HERE or HERE.
As the weather pattern starts to transition Friday through Monday, we’ll still see a few areas of scattered showers, but will start to see a diminishing threat for widespread daily areas of heavy rains and thinderstorms.
Next week, while it looked earlier like a cool front would move into the Tennessee Valley and clear us out, cooling us down dramatically, there now seems a chance for that entire storm system to stall out, and put us back into a rainy and wet pattern through Big Spring Jam Weekend in Huntsville.
Remain Weather Aware, Check the 7-Day Forecast for Details, and follow us on Twitter @ stormforce31, and on facebook as well.
Brad Huffines, Chief Meteorologist / Storm Force 31
Daily showers and thunderstorms have been developing each afternoon for days and will continue to for days to come. The question remains… WHY? The answer lies in the upper level wind flow that is responsible for pushing around our surface storm systems. In the Plains, the second of TWO upper level ‘eddies’ have formed to ouw west, putting a center of unsettled energy to our west, placing us in the path of weak waves that ’spoke off’ the main ‘wheel’ to our west.
The impossibile part of this forecast is in determining exactly where these spokes of rain and thunderstorms will develop on a day to day basis. This has kept a ‘low-grade chance of showers and thunderstorms’ in the forecast each day for the past several.
What is about to happen is a major change in the upper level wind flow pattern that controls the weather patterns across the United States. What this will produce is a strong cold front which will move all the way across the country, affecting each of the lower 48 in the next week. One week from today, the high temperatures will fall 10 to 15 degrees. Unfortunately, there is a chance for strong to severe thunderstorms to precede that front on Tuesday.
As the upper level storm system spins in the Plains and Mid-South, we have been seeing tons of clouds intermittent with scattered areas of sunshine. When this sun has shone through, we’ve quickly discovered how warm it can be quickly with increasing clouds. In Huntsville, the high temperature was 86 degrees, but the heat index climbed to 92!
In the Shoals, with an afternoon high at 85, the heat index was 90.
With the high humidities, the warm temperatures felt even warmer with the heat index values climbing to the low-90s. THis same type of weather will continue through the end of the week when, hopefully, a weak cool front will cool us down a LITTLE into the weekend.
Brad Huffines, Chief Meteorologist / Storm Force 31
Another Impressive Photo from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory
This composite image of the Hydra A galaxy cluster shows 10-million- degree gas observed by Chandra in blue and jets of radio emission observed by the Very Large Array in pink. Optical data from the Canada- France-Hawaii telescope and the Digitized Sky Survey shows galaxies in the cluster.
Detailed analysis of the Chandra data shows that the gas located along the direction of the radio jets is enhanced in iron and other metals. Scientists think these elements have been produced by Type Ia supernova explosions in the large galaxy at the center of the cluster.
A powerful outburst from the supermassive black hole then pushed the material outwards, over distances extending for almost 400,000 light years, extending beyond the region shown in this image. About 10 to 20 percent of the iron in the galaxy has been displaced, requiring a few percent of the total energy produced by the central black hole.
Outbursts from the central, supermassive black hole have not only pushed elements outwards, but have created a series of cavities in the hot gas. As these jets blasted through the galaxy into the surrounding multimillion-degree intergalactic gas, they pushed the hot gas aside to create the cavities. A relatively recent outburst created a pair of cavities visible as dark regions in the Chandra image located around the radio emission. These cavities are so large they would be able to contain the entire Milky Way galaxy, but they are dwarfed by even larger cavities – too faint to be visible in this image – created by earlier, more powerful outbursts from the black hole. The largest of these cavities is immense, extending for about 670,000 light years.
(information courtesy of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center)
And a Review of How The Storm Force 31 Seasonal Outlook Compared
Summer 2009 started off on a warm note as a heat wave built into the Valley starting on June 15th and continuing through July 4th. During this heat wave we saw 20 consecutive days of 90 degrees or above temperatures and we even saw one day reach the century mark, June 28. This was the first time the temperature made it to 100 degrees in Huntsville in 21 years! The heat wave came as a bit of surprise because the overall forecast for the summer was for cooler than normal. If you throw out June, that would have been the case as June was 4.10 degrees above normal while July and August combine were 2.3 degrees below normal.Overall, much of the nation saw a cooler than normal summer. The coolest was across the Dakotas, while the heat was contained to Texas and the Pacific Northwest. Here is an image from NOAA that shows how temperatures compared to normal across the country. Notice the Tennessee Valley was just south of the area of below normal temperatures.
Regarding precipitation, we had seen a very wet Spring and the forecast for the Summer was for it to begin to dry out. That was the case in June but not so for July and August. As a result, Summer 2009 ended up 1.88” above normal.
Overall, the Summer 2009 outlook can be graded with a “C”. Had June been cooler and had we not seen quite as much rain in July and August the grade would have been easily a “B” or higher. In the table below compares the forecast vs. the actual numbers.
June
Forecast
Actual
Grade
Temperature
-1.74 Degrees
+4.10 Degrees
F
Precipitation
-2.05”
-2.59”
B+
90 Degree Days
6
20
F
100 Degree Days
0
1
A
Days w/ Severe WX
3
11
D
July
Forecast
Actual
Grade
Temperature
-1.83 Degrees
-2.00 Degrees
A
Precipitation
-0.32”
+2.35”
D
90 Degree Days
13
11
A
100 Degree Days
0
0
A
Days w/ Severe WX
2
6
B
August
Forecast
Actual
Grade
Temperature
-1.39 Degrees
-0.30 Degrees
C
Precipitation
-0.88”
+2.12”
F
90 Degree Days
12
10
A
100 Degree Days
0
0
A
Days w/ Severe WX
1
2
A
Now it is time to take a look at what you can expect for Autumn 2009. To see the 2009 Autumn Outlook make sure to watch WAAY 31 News at 10 PM on Thursday, September 10 or stop back by right here at www.stormforce31.com on Friday, September 11.
On WAAY-31 News at 6pm Monday, we showed some video from Rachel Keith, one of our talented photojournalist reporters. She set her camera up near the WAAY-31 Backyard Water Garden, and taped footage of the Hummingbirds enjoying their feeder.
Following my showing her video on the 6pm news, I received an email from Sandy Pierce from Fyffe, who shared her images of hummingbirds in her yard. So I wanted to share those with you as well.
Thank you Sandy for sharing. If you ever have any images you want to share, please send them along to weather@waaytv.com.
Brad Huffines, Chief Meteorologist / Storm Force 31
Now that the Labor Day Weekend is here, you can look forward to warm afternoons, perfect for the water or outdoor events, and for increasing chances for showers and thunderstorms SAT, SUN, and MON. Though the threat is the highest each afternoon, where they do form they could be potentially locally heavy with downpours and lightning.
Next week we’ll still see temperatures in the 85 to 88 range, slight chances for afternoon showers and t-storms as we await the next cool front which should arrive next weekend.
And now for the kick-off forecasts for the state colleges of most local interest.
Have a Happy and SAFE Labor Day Weekend!
Check the 7-Day forecast for details and follow Storm Force31 on Twitter @ stormforce31, and on Facebook, Storm Force 31.
Brad Huffines, Chief Meteorologist / Storm Force 31
