Bama Weather/Nowcast 5-17-04

[Brett Adair]

A crazy weather day was definitely the story across Central Alabama this afternoon. Convection began to “pop” around the noontime hour in Southern Talladega County where brief heavy rainfall was observed from until around 12:30 pm. Thunderstorms pulsed up and sparked warnings for Clay, Cleburne, Etowah, and Talladega Counties near the 2:30 timeframe. After 5 radar scans they were dead……pulse to 60 dBZ, drop dime size hail, produced a wet microburst and then they were dead. This evening a more organized area of convection grew across the area with outflow boundaries in the area. A cell formed near the Childersburg area along the Coosa River and crossed an outflow boundary at a perpendicular angle to the mean storm motion. This caused a small scale, low-level rotation in the area. A wall cloud/funnel was observed around 6:32 pm and photographed in the region. Pictures will be posted later in the week. The storm quickly died after the funnel was observed. MCS is currently ongoing where a meso-scale vortex as developed across eastern Shelby County. Rainfall amounts of over 3.00” have been observed in eastern Chilton, Coosa, Southern Talladega, western Clay, and northern Tallapoosa Counties. Some roadways were covered in water.

More activity is expected as this pattern will continue for the next few days. Moist boundary layer along with moderate to strong instability in the afternoon hours will allow for convection to be imminent across the region. Some storms could be pulse severe at times. Flash flooding will be possible as weak upper level steering current will be in place. Lightning can also be dangerous. Two homes were hit in Jefferson and Blount Counties by lightning today. Stay tuned…