48 FIRST ALERT WEATHER EXTRA

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:01:21]Hello everybody. How are you doing?

[00:01:23]Little weather extra for you right now as I bang my elbow on the counter. That felt good.

[00:01:27]Um hey, big change came overnight. We had a few more showers that raced through last night. Little post frontal activity. Hey, more rain the better.

[00:01:34]It's like the cherry on the Sunday. Good stuff right there. Add more rain. Get it while we got it. And now that rain's moved out and it's been really sunny this morning. Very breezy and cooler.

[00:01:43]You'll notice it when you go outside today that we're not hitting 80 anymore.

[00:01:47]In fact, today temperatures will likely be in the mid upper 60s and that's about where we are right now. Mid 60s for the warmest areas and there's a few 50s for Moulton and Lawrenceburg.

[00:01:57]Sunshine's nice and a little wind but as we go through the afternoon, clouds will eventually win out and take your sunshine away.

[00:02:03]Um anytime you have a late April or early May sun, it feels good outside even if the temperature's like 65. When you have clouds and 65 and a breezy conditions, it will feel a little bit cooler to you this afternoon no matter where the air temperature sets up. Sun plays a big part in how it feels for you outside this time of year. So in Decatur right now, a little chop on the water. Breeze out of the north ushering in or tugging down that cooler air from the north. Uh 61 in Decatur right now. Probably feels like 50s though with the wind. Uh afternoon planner for us. Um a little more clouds at times.

[00:02:38]Temperatures in the upper 60s. I think we officially went 69 for the high for our 3° guarantee and uh not the brightest afternoon but no rain in the forecast. Not just for today but for tonight too. So wind speeds and gusts strongest through about 5:00 p.m. and then they should back off a bit by evening. In fact, after midnight winds will be nearly calm. Normally, if you have clear skies, chilly air mass and no wind to mix up the air, you can have a really chilly night and it is going to be cool tonight but there'll be a little bit more cloud cover tonight as it filters across the Tennessee Valley throughout the overnight into tomorrow. So uh that 49 is based on a lot of clouds.

[00:03:19]If we somehow clear things out overnight and have like a window of cool of clear skies, it'll be a little cooler than that. But uh nonetheless, a chilly start to the day on Friday. Friday, no rain during the day. When you see the percents on this graphic, you see 20 and 30 but that 20% is for Friday night. So if you have plans during the day or if you have plans during the evening, it will be dry. It's going to be a lot of cloud cover. It's going to be a cool day.

[00:03:44]Friday night after midnight, uh little rain will work across the area. No severe weather, nothing like that. It's part of a low pressure that's along the Gulf and the northern fringe of it. Just like I said yesterday, it's going to clip the area. If you live south of the Tennessee River, you have a higher chance of rainfall. If you are a viewer in middle Tennessee, unless you're in Franklin County, you probably won't have a drop of rain. Um it comes in after midnight Friday night with us till about 7:00 or 8:00 a.m. on Saturday and then much of the day Saturday is dry. So that 30% is not going to impact your outdoor plans on Saturday.

[00:04:20]Um Saturday will probably feature a lot of cloud cover and cool temperatures and the Sunday zero is really nice and so is the Monday and Tuesday too. Temperatures will be warmer next week. Let's talk about the rainfall though for Friday.

[00:04:34]Uh 3:00 p.m. You see that big cluster of yellow and red and green. That's not severe weather per se. That's really just heavy rainfall.

[00:04:41]Um southern Louisiana, southeast Texas.

[00:04:44]That little pressure is going to hug the coast. So what it does is it takes the majority of the rain and pivots it south of us and therefore we just get brushed with the northern fringe of the light stuff. And the timing of it again, midnight making its way into like Coleman County, southern Marshall County, parts of maybe even Franklin County and then just staying almost in the same spot until 2:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. This is just kind of going to do one of these. Like this. So eventually it lifts a little bit more north up to Jackson County maybe by 4:00 a.m. But the core of the steadier heavier rainfall will be to our south. Areas like Birmingham, Atlanta along the I-20 corridor will have a little bit better chance of more widespread soaking rain.

[00:05:27]And then by 6:00 a.m. this thing's already pushing itself out and by 8:00, just about all the rain is out of here and it will clear the Georgia state line certainly by noon. Um the temperatures are a big big deal on Saturday because we're cool today, we're cool tomorrow. It could even be cooler on Saturday. Um the temperature by 4:00 p.m. This particular graphic has Huntsville at 65 and surrounding areas 60s to near 70 but if the cloud cover lingers into the afternoon, that could very well be a 62 or 63 in Huntsville and that's pretty chilly for this time of year. But if we pop some sunshine which a lot of the forecast models are showing now, that sun which will be a May sun by Saturday, um will warm things up nicely and I do think that we'll get up to about 66 to 70 if that happens.

[00:06:14]Nonetheless, it's all below average temperatures but you know, 66 to 70 with some sunshine Saturday afternoon after a gloomy start is a nice way to rebound after a tough start to the day. Whatever sun you don't get on Saturday, you'll have in full effect on Sunday.

[00:06:30]Um Sunday looks great. Little chilly if you're going to church services in the morning. Uh going with a low of 41.

[00:06:37]Plants are okay. You don't have to cover them.

[00:06:39]But if you're going out and about early Sunday morning, you're watching the uh weekend news and uh Matthew, myself and Claudia are talking about how cold it's going to be that morning, right? But by the afternoon, 71 and sunny looks good.

[00:06:52]Monday and Tuesday will make a run at 80. It come with a mix of sun and clouds. Kept it dry. The next more widespread rainfall, not that little little push of light rain Friday night into Saturday but more widespread rainfall with some thunderstorms and heavy rain potential would be Wednesday when a cold front moves through. It looked like that front was going to move through on Thursday yesterday. Forecast models a little quicker with it now and therefore coming in Wednesday afternoon, Wednesday night and then a little break in the action after Thursday morning any lingering showers end. Friday looks good and then into the following weekend, there's another boundary that could bring another round of rain on Saturday.

[00:07:30]The one thing that we've done this week and into next week is we've changed the pattern, right? We talked about how if we're going to get the drought, erase some of those ugly colors on the drought monitor, we would have to get a more persistent rain forecast. We'd have to start hitting on rain when we get it and when we get the rainfall, make sure that it's happening for more than just like 2 hours. We're getting it for like the whole night or the whole day and we've done that this week. Uh many locations have had two, three, four, even 5 inches of rainfall.

[00:08:01]So it's worked out.

[00:08:03]So we finally have that pattern change.

[00:08:05]Um the drought monitor got updated. I didn't add it to my graphic show. I should have. But the drought monitor got added today or updated today and uh there's really no change. You're like, "Well, wait a minute. It rained a lot this week. Why isn't it changed?" You got to remember the drought monitor gets updated on Thursday morning but it tracks the rainfall. I think it's up until Tuesday at noon. I think Eric and I figured out like it's it's somewhere in Tuesday morning. So which means whatever rain fell from the sky afternoon on Tuesday, Tuesday night and on Wednesday and on Wednesday night is not factored into the new update. So the rainfall that we've pretty much had for this week won't show up in the graphic or any improvements until next Thursday.

[00:08:54]And sometimes even though it was a soaking rain, if we don't have a lot of rain up until Tuesday, may not see much of a change at all.

[00:09:06]But see how it goes. The drought monitor is weird like that.

[00:09:11]So sometimes you have to wait almost like two Thursdays before you start to see the benefits of what the rain was.

[00:09:16]Um in the last update of course, there's a little extreme drought for parts of Jackson and DeKalb County. Um that was one area that actually did really well.

[00:09:24]Not just Monday and Tuesday but even on Saturday morning I was working and uh the rainfall Friday night didn't materialize and so everybody was very cranky on Saturday morning wondering where the rain was. Well, one area that had rain the whole morning was Jackson and DeKalb County right where that extreme part of the drought graphic shows some red. And um it rained almost all morning there and then of course everybody got into some rain Saturday afternoon with some pop up thunderstorms. Um but yeah, I mean if you can change the pattern, get into more frequent rain and not have widespread severe weather. We did have some wind damage reports. We did have some power outages. We had some small hail reports, but overall, compared to what the rest of the US is going through and we are predominantly a severe weather market for sure, we did a pretty good job really good Houdini act of getting good rain and keeping the storm reports to a minimum. There was some wind reports yesterday morning with a cluster of storms that kind of moved in and moved out, but I think that, you know, for the most part when we're not talking about tornadoes across the Tennessee Valley and the other parts of the US are talking about how they're getting tornadoes on a regular basis, seems like. Um so many storm reports, so many tornado reports in the last 2 weeks and we've been just lucky enough to not have any. Um just some rain, so.

[00:10:45]That's a good thing.

[00:10:46]All right, 10:52, which means I got to stop talking. TVL comes up here in about 8 minutes. Peyton will be on air and she'll be talking to these these these two young ladies in the kitchen. It's always a good thing when people are in the kitchen cuz that means they're probably cooking.

[00:11:03]That means there's leftover.

[00:11:05]>> [laughter] >> I don't know why I'm pausing every time I say the third word.

[00:11:08]Um but anyway, Peyton's good to go. She'll have all the uh entertainment news for you and uh special guests and also probably talk about a few of the events that are maybe taking place across the Tennessee Valley this weekend.

[00:11:21]Uh Gina Benitez will be on at noon and she will have the latest on all your updates on your news stories from overnight, any breaking news when we did have breaking news this morning.

[00:11:31]And I'll fill in a little weather at time, so. Everybody have a fantastic rest of your Thursday afternoon. Chief Meteorologist Brad Travis will be in tonight. He'll have the very latest for you at 4, 5, 6, and 10. And then Eric Burke will be back tomorrow morning.

[00:11:43]Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 4:30 and updating that Friday night rainfall and talking more about the weekend and the cool temperatures. For now, everybody have a fantastic rest of your day and we'll talk again soon.