After another warm, dry, and sunny day across North Alabama, we are going to start seeing some changes in our weather pattern beginning as early as Tuesday. Scattered showers and a few thunderstorms are possible tomorrow afternoon and evening. No severe weather is expected, but one or two storms could become strong, with heavy rainfall and gusty winds the primary concerns. Despite the rain chances, allergy sufferers will continue to have to battle a very high tree pollen count and a moderate grass pollen count in coming days. Tuesday will be the first of several waves of rain in the days to come.
Lingering showers will persist into Wednesday morning before we get a break around lunchtime. Then we turn our attention to a strong cold front off to our northwest that will be moving into North Alabama late Wednesday night into Thursday morning. A line of strong to severe storms will accompany this cold front, bringing the risk for Scattered severe storms to parts of our area, especially for our communities north of the Tennessee River. Damaging winds and heavy rainfall are the primary threats Wednesday night. An isolated tornado can't be completely ruled out, but that threat remains low. As with the last several sever weather episodes in our area, this will be a nighttime event while many of you are sleeping. Please be sure to have multiple ways to get warnings that will wake you up Wednesday night and early Thursday morning. Stay with WAAY 31 updates.
The cold front moves through Thursday morning, cooling us down to below normal for early April, with highs in the low to mid 60s. Looking ahead to Easter weekend, there is still substantial differences among data sources on potential rain chances. Some sources continue to keep us dry until early next week, while others bring the potential for heavy rain Saturday night into Easter Sunday morning. For now, we will continue to keep the chance for scattered showers throughout the weekend and continue to fine tune the forecast as the week progresses. Despite all of the rain chances in the coming days, rainfall totals look to stay under a half inch through Friday night.