Alabama Weather Network Late Night Forecast: Tuesday 07/21/26

[00:00:01][music] >> It's time for your statewide Alabama weather cast.

[00:00:08]>> [music] >> Let's take a late night look at Alabama's weather on this late Tuesday night, early Wednesday morning.

[00:00:16]Meteorologist Bill Murray here at the Alabama Weather Network. We have strong thunderstorms moving through Southern Tennessee. The good news is they will continue to weaken as they move toward the Tennessee Valley of North Alabama.

[00:00:29]Here you see the radar as I record this at 11:35. We still have a severe thunderstorm warning for areas around Savannah and Clinton uh Clifton and Southern Tennessee, but uh that storm is uh uh beginning to slowly weaken. some uh strong reflectivity here just north of Savannah, uh but uh lots of lightning associated with it, very heavy rain, uh but not much wind. Uh we do uh expect it to continue weakening. We'll watch it as it moves toward the Quad Cities of Northwest Alabama over the uh next hour or so. Here's our one of our newest cameras on the Region Sky Cam Network tonight from the Cypress Inn in uh Southern Tennessee showing that uh very vivid lightning. 79° here with a dew point of 77. Looking back toward the storm, and uh if you're in that area, you're beginning to see really, really brilliant lightning there. And uh continuing down to the southeast into Northwest Alabama uh on the Renaissance Tower at Florence.

[00:01:29]82° with a dew point of 73, and you can also see the lightning here uh in the uh distance off to the northwest. Winds currently gusting to 21 mph. You could have some gusty winds as the storms move in. The lights of the city of Huntsville, the Rocket City, looking beautiful tonight. 78° with a dew point of 73 on our Region Sky Cam and occasional lightning flash showing up here, a little more to the right, um but uh a little further in this it's kind of a hazy look. The purple lights of Noccalula Falls from Gadsden, a beautiful look here, 82° in Etowah County. Just a great night as Black Creek tumbles over the falls. Down to Birmingham, the Magic City, Region's Sky Cam Network camera atop the Regions Center. If you looked hard, you'd find Regions Field, my tri fecta, 80° with a dew point of 71 and a light south southeast wind. The towers atop Red Mountain. Montgomery, the capital city, the moon shining brightly, 81° here with a dew point of 73 and an easterly wind gusting to 9 mph, but the most beautiful moon shot of the night coming from Biloxi on the Mississippi Gulf Coast where it's 81°.

[00:02:51]See the lightning from those powerful thunderstorm storms associated with the circulation center of Tropical Storm Bertha tonight, well offshore and well southeast of the Mississippi coast, well well southwest, well to the southwest of the circulation center of the storm as well. We continue to watch that. The storm undergoing strong northeasterly shear keeping those storms at bay and that is really good news. It's prevented us from getting a strengthening tropical storm or hurricane in the northern Gulf Coast today and that's just the way we like them. Exposed circulation center right here south of the Alabama coast tonight moving to the west northwest or west toward the southeastern Louisiana coast.

[00:03:47]It's going to make landfall tomorrow somewhere here in southeastern Louisiana, maybe up toward the mouth of the Pearl River. We'll be watching it overnight. Live updates at 2:00 a.m., 4:00 a.m., and a comprehensive update with Alabama's weatherman James Spann on the Alabama Weather Network and the entire team coming up at 6:00 a.m. You can see those colder cloud tops back along the Louisiana coast and south of the circulation center here, but we don't expect that to change. In fact, we expect Bertha will continue to weaken slowly over the next 24 hours. The 10:00 p.m. advisory, top wind 60 miles an hour. The gusts now 70.

[00:04:31]Center pressure has been fluctuating around 995, 997 millibars, moving west at 6 miles an hour. Tropical storm watch is in effect for the Louisiana coast.

[00:04:43]Tropical storm warnings from Morgan City back to near Panama City, including the Alabama coast. Not expecting widespread tropical storm sustained winds or gusts, but there will be a few and there will be some inundation of coastal areas as well. Here you see the official track from the National Hurricane Center, expected to slowly weaken on this official track, becoming a depression here by Thursday night near the Houston-Galveston area, moving into Texas and becoming a remnant low by Friday morning. And Bertha will be a distant memory by the weekend. Wind speeds at this hour, just before midnight, showing wind gusts nowhere really near tropical storm force at this hour, gusting to 31 at the buoy right off of Orange Beach. Look at buoy KVOA south of the Alabama coast. The wind gusts right now, zero Uh the center is very close to that buoy at this hour.

[00:05:51]When gusts hit Gulf Shores, 13. Mobile uh gusting to 16 this hour. Temperatures across the state quite muggy, uh upper 70s to low 80s in this soupy air mass.

[00:06:03]Forecast lows are not going to change much, dropping about 5 to 6 degrees uh in this warm humid air mass over Alabama. Tomorrow going to be a warm one. Temperatures generally between about 91 and 98 degrees, depending on where you are. It's going to be a very warm July day. Temperatures running near to a little above normal across the state. So, just take it easy. Normal precautions for July. Watching those thunderstorms over southern Tennessee as they weaken here by 2:00 a.m., working their way into the northern part of Alabama, falling apart as they go. You wake up to a partly to mostly cloudy skies in general areas across Alabama. A few showers across the coastal zone, across the uh panhandle. We'll be watching for some inundation at high tide in Mobile, Baldwin counties, back across the panhandle. Those water levels could reach 1 to 3 ft above normally high above normally dry ground in places like the west end of Dauphin Island, uh perhaps along the causeway, uh in Mobile, maybe Fort Pickens in Escambia County, near Pensacola Beach. So, watch out for those areas tomorrow morning.

[00:07:16]Showers and thunderstorms associated with the feeder bands during the day tomorrow. They'll get going again, not especially heavy or severe, but you could have a tropical downpour from a uh from time to time to time. If you're along the beaches, you'll see an occasional passing shower, a few glints of sunshine. So, not a total washout by any means. Still a beautiful day.

[00:07:39]Decreasing winds as we go through the day. but uh Thursday morning will see uh another chance of flooding along the beaches when high tide comes, again about 6:00 a.m. During the uh overnight hours tomorrow night, warm and muggy, partly to mostly cloudy skies, temperatures dropping into the upper 70s to low 80s. Rainfall amounts along the Gulf Coast have been fairly light. Half inch expected over the next 7 days Mobile and Baldwin counties, across the Panhandle, areas along I-10. The better rain chances are going to come over north Alabama where we could see 1 and 1/2 to 2 inches, maybe even 2 and 1/2 inches in spots, as some of that moisture gets pulled back into a trough and ahead of a frontal system over the northern part of the state. Your 7-day forecast for the northern half of Alabama looks like this. Rain chances ranging between about 10 and 30% each day. Temperatures will be warming up as the clouds begin to go away and the rain chances begin to go down. We'll be in the middle 90s by Monday and Tuesday of next week. For the southern half of Alabama, about the same, lower to middle 90s for daytime highs. Rain chances will be generally in the 20 to 40% range.

[00:08:54]Overnight lows will be in the middle 70s. We'll have updates throughout the night. Watch our tropical product. We'll have live updates here at 2:00, 4:00, and 6:00 a.m. on Tropical Storm Bertha on the Alabama Weather Network.