Monday Evening Forecast

Forecast Issued by Michael Leach on 03/27/2006 at 2:05:37 pm CT

Mobile, Alabama 5 Day Forecast
Tonight	Tomorrow	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
	74°F	76°F	78°F	79°F
50°F		57°F	58°F	60°F
SSE 5-10 mph	S 6-12 mph	S 5-10 mph	S 5-10 mph	SSW 10-15 mph
0%	30%	30%	30%	60%

Detailed Forecast

Tonight… Partly cloudy. Low near 50. Winds south-southeast 5-10 mph. Tomorrow... Mostly cloudy with a chance of showers. High around 74. Winds south 6-12 mph. Chance of rain is 30 percent. Tuesday Night... Mostly cloudy with a chance of showers. Patchy fog possible after midnight. Low near 57. Light southeast winds. Chance of rain is 30 percent. Wednesday... Mostly cloudy with a chance of showers and thunderstorms. High around 76. Winds south 5-10 mph. Chance of rain is 30 percent. Wednesday Night... Mostly cloudy with a chance of showers and thunderstorms. Low near 58. Winds south 3-8 mph. Chance of rain is 30 percent. Thursday... Mostly cloudy with a chance of showers and thunderstorms. High around 78. Winds south 5-10 mph. Chance of rain is 30 percent. Thursday Night... Partly cloudy with a slight chance of showers. Low around 60. Winds south 5-10 mph. Chance of rain is 20 percent. Friday... Mostly cloudy. Showers and thunderstorms becoming likely. High near 79. Winds south-southwest 10-15 mph. Chance of rain is 60 percent. Friday Night... Mostly cloudy with scattered showers and thunderstorms. Low 62. Winds south-southwest 5-10 mph. Chance of rain is 50 percent.

Technical Discussion

Short Term (Tonight through Tuesday evening): A nice warmup is underway this afternoon as southeasterly winds are bringing up warmer air from the Gulf of Mexico. Dewpoints remain rather low (38F at KMOB at 1 PM CST), but should begin to increase later today and tonight. At the surface, an area of high pressure is located over the Carolinas, providing us with that southeasterly wind. Tonight, expect lows to be around 10 degrees warmer than last night due to more cloud cover and to the WAA pattern that has begun over the area. On Tuesday, a weak cold front will move into Central Alabama, but will likely stall north of our area. 12z MOS products increased PoP's for this timeframe. Rain will be likely over Central Alabama in association with the front, and there is a chance of a few showers down this way as a few small shortwave troughs will move through the area, providing some slight PVA. These shortwaves are hard to time, and will go with 30% PoP's for both Tuesday and Tuesday night. Models indicate the possibility of fog Tuesday Night as the dewpoint approaches the temperature and wind speeds go light, and will include patchy fog in the forecast for after midnight on Tuesday Night. Temperatures continue to warm during the short term period due to WAA. Long Term (Wednesday through Friday): The cold front that stalled over Central Alabama on Tuesday will likely begin to retreat northward as a warm front on Wednesday, keeping our area in a continued WAA pattern with increasing temperatures and dewpoints. For Wednesday and Thursday, several small shortwave troughs will move across the area, providing some PVA. Once again, these will be hard to time, and kept small PoP's in the forecast for that time frame. Friday's forecast looks pretty tricky at this time. A strong low pressure area will move across the Midwest on Friday, and to near the Great Lakes region by Friday Night. A trailing cold front from this system will likely approach (and maybe pass through) the region Friday night/early Saturday morning. The question will be the amount of moisture and lifting available in our area. The 00z GFS showed an amplified trough across the Southeastern states, and painted a pretty good chance of precip across our area. The 12z GFS has the trough a little less amplified and a little farther to the north. Consequently, the 12z GFS is not as robust with precip as the 00z GFS was. In fact, the 12z GFS shows a similar situation as with the last few cold fronts that have moved across our region, with the best chance of precip just north of MOB. The 12z ECMWF shows basically the same pattern as the 12z GFS, with the surface low perhaps a little farther north than the GFS. Nevertheless, will continue with previously forecasted 60% PoP's on Friday at this time, and await later model runs to see if that needs to be adjusted one way or the other. Temperatures will continue to warm throughout the period thanks to WAA.

Hazardous Weather

No hazardous weather is expected through the forecast period.