AWN Tuesday 5/26/26 Late Morning Statewide Forecast Update from Drew McCombs

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:01][music] It's time for your statewide Alabama weathercast.

[00:00:08][music] Hi, I'm meteorologist Drew McLols with the Alabama Weather Network. And this is your late morning forecast update for this Tuesday, May the 26th. And we start off looking at a picture of the tornado that occurred down in Houston and Henry counties uh yesterday evening. This is a picture from JD Shaw in Headland. Um, and she was near highway, basically at the intersection of Highway 134 and County Road 13. Looking back off towards the east, this was sent via our Sky Watcher, Joey Amberson. You can see the tornado there. Again, back towards the right, you've got probably some rain or some low clouds, but this was the tornado here. And the weather service is sitting sending a team to assess that.

[00:00:48]We should know later today kind of what their rating is on it, but certainly some damage with that uh that occurred with that storm in both Houston and in Henry counties. Uh, also obviously the big story has been the rain falling over the last few days. And this these are basically storm totals from some of our sky watchers over the last several days.

[00:01:04]So it looks like the winner at this point is Daniel Trenton uh in Scottsboro who's gotten nearly seven inches of rain over the last last several days. 6.69 issues uh inches. Lee Wigington and Jasper has gotten 4.73 four and a half from John Talbot and Huey Town. Uh in Delta Nate Sullivan's gotten 2.16 and Wallace Williams in Cottonell 2.14. But again, very widespread, fairly heavy rainfall totals across the state.

[00:01:28]Beneficial rain, but we're almost getting to the point we're getting a little bit too much in spots. But as we take a look at our satellite radar this morning, things are pretty calm at this point. A few showers starting to form in western Alabama. A few showers have been in around Livingston there recently. A few starting to move into northern parts of Green County. Got a few showers down into western Escambia County near Atmore. Some moving up into Kka County as well. A little bit more sunshine though out there this morning compared to yesterday where we were pretty much socked in with cloud cover most of the day. But as we take a look at our region Skyam network in Hamilton, it's raining right now. You can see that happening as we speak. 72 degrees is the temperature.

[00:02:03]Winds are still relatively light. As we continue our tour around the northern part of state, Gunnersville, though in the northeastern part of the state, not seeing any rain currently. A beautiful view there looking back towards the lake. 76 degrees is your temperature.

[00:02:15]And again, winds are relatively light.

[00:02:16]Due points are in the upper 60s and really more low 70s across most of the state, but you can see it's 68 or 69 in Nalula Falls as well. And actually, we were looking at the falls yesterday and noticing how wasn't nearly as much water going over it as you would expect. There certainly quite a bit more now. They got a good bit of rain in the Gadson area yesterday. So, seeing a lot more water coming over the falls this morning compared to yesterday. Region Center in downtown Birmingham, one of the spots where we're seeing a little bit of sun breaking out here, but still some uh clouds kind of mixed in with that as well. It's 75 degrees as far as the temperature and again we definitely a little bit warmer than we were this time yesterday in many spots. We'll see we'll show a map of that here in a second.

[00:02:52]Beautiful view here from Mount Chiha. I saw low kind of stratistic earlier but seeing a few more breaks in the clouds and that's just really really pretty view. It's 67° uh right there at top the highest point in the state. Winds are still relatively light in Livingston.

[00:03:07]Like I mentioned earlier on the radar seeing some showers around right now. 73 degrees as your temperature due point at 72. So again, lots of kind of juicy air still still in place in Abbyville. This is close to where we saw the tornado yesterday. In fact, the storm approached Abbyville, but had already weakened by the time it got into Abyville, but Abyville was under a tornado warning for a period of time. But uh the storm thankfully weakened before it got uh that far to the north. 76 degrees is the current temperature there in the southeastern part of the state. And as we move down to the Gulf at Gulf Shores, quite a few people out on the beach trying to uh soak it in a little bit more since there's not as much rain around so far this morning. But again, just keep in mind rip currents, in fact, that's probably one right there, are an issue uh the next several days through most of this week. So, you want to be careful if you are getting out in the water because of that. Temperatures right now, again, a little bit warmer this time yesterday. We got 80 in Euphal, it's 80 in Atmore. So, because of the fact that we're seeing a little bit more sunshine in spots, we don't have as much rain around. We've been able to get into the upper 70s, low 80s in in South Alabama already. Mid to upper 70s more common further towards the north. And again, the temperature change over the last 24 hours, at least a few degrees to the north, closer to 6, 7, 8, 9 degrees as you move further to the south in some of those areas that were getting some steady rainfall uh this time yesterday. Here's our key messages. So, unsettled weather continues. So, we expect even though it's kind of calm right now, another round of showers and thunderstorms, fairly numerous happening today, this afternoon, this evening. We'll see kind of another round tomorrow and really there might be a few breaks here and there at at times uh where some spots don't get as much but we expect to really see more of a drying pattern as we get into the first week of June which is next week. Uh even then though it won't be completely dry. We'll still have some scattered storms around but probably not quite what we've been seeing seeing here recently. Forecast highs for today again a lot of places are already kind of in that neighborhood in South Alabama. highs getting up to the low 80s, but we do expect further to the north to potentially get up into the low 80s as well. But again, it all depends on how much uh rain we see at times during the afternoon. Lows for tonight will be pretty balmy in the generally low 70s, maybe upper 60s as you move further towards the north. And again, we continue to be in the same pattern as we look at the water vapor imagery. We see this green here streaming up into the southeastern part of the state. We've got this upper level low still off to the west and then we have a high pressure to the east. So again, the the air is being kind of funneled in between those, bringing in that deep moisture from the Gulf and helping to fuel all the rain and thunderstorms. Now, the good thing about today versus yesterday, this time yesterday, we had a severe weather outlook, a level one marginal risk that have been issued for good portion of southern Alabama. We don't have that today. So, a little bit smaller chance probably of seeing any issues with severe weather or a tornado like we saw yesterday in southeastern Alabama. So, uh not not out of the realm of possibility. We still may see a strong thunderstorm or two, but looks like a little bit smaller risk today of seeing that kind of activity. Looking at our futurecast, again, we have some scattered showers and thunderstorms that really should start to become more numerous as we move through the rest of the morning and into the early afternoon. By 3:00, expecting to have fairly widespread showers and thunderstorms, especially in South Alabama, maybe not quite as much further to the north. Temperatures getting up in the upper 70s, low 80s, mostly cloudy skies in many spots this evening. Looks like a lot of it should be kind of shifting further towards the east. Maybe West Alabama is trying to clear out a little bit, but still some pretty heavy rain and thunderstorm activity possible in South Alabama again. And again, we'll continue to watch this as we move through the next few days because of the possibility of seeing storms move over the same spot over and over again and could cause some potential uh flooding in some spots. By uh by Wednesday morning, we look like we'll be calm with temperatures in the low 70s uh but not much in the way of rain around. But then again, we do it all over again tomorrow afternoon. numerous scattered show or numerous showers and thunderstorms especially in South Alabama but maybe not quite as much to the north but again this isn't exactly what it's going to look like. This is just an idea of what it could look like again by Thursday morning we wind things down again before cranking it back up Thursday afternoon.

[00:06:59]So again we do have a flood watch in effect for most of the state. Really the only places in the state not in the flood watch will be kind of the northwestern counties and western counties, Lamar, Pickins, Sumpter, Green, places like that and up towards the north all the way up to Lauderdale also including Limestone, Lawrence, Winston, places to the west. Everybody else though is in the flood watch through late tonight. So in these areas in green, which again covers most of the state, heavy rainfall could cause some flooding issues. And again, a lot of that has to do with the fact that how much rain we've seen recently. It's been a long time since we've been able to show a map here that shows these kind of percentages of normal over the last month. So, we've seen uh over 100%, you know, basically 200 almost 300% of normal across southern part of the state with all the rain recently. So, again, uh good to see this uh but we're almost getting the point where we've we've had a little bit too much, but we'll continue to see more of that. Now, this is the rainfall outlook through Saturday. A lot of times we'll show the next week. This only goes through Saturday and you can see widespread two three inch totals in the southern part of the state and the eastern part of the state. So again, we expect more heavy rain uh for the next several days through Saturday. Maybe not quite as much further to the north, but still probably over an inch at least. But when we look a little bit past that into Sunday and Monday, the totals start to come down. So again, we're expecting as we get into that time frame into early next week that the uh the rain chances will will start to come down a little bit and the rain totals will start to come down. So only expecting, you know, maybe a half inch in some of those spots in the southeast over those couple of days. So again, it's not as big of a time period, but we can definitely start to see a downward trend as we move into next week. As we look at our 7-day forecast for the northern half state, we'll see that here. But again, first of all, next several days continue to have high rain chances, scattered showers, and thunderstorms pretty common. Highs in the upper 70s, maybe low 80s in spots that don't see as much rain. Lows stay pretty much in the mid maybe upper 60s.

[00:08:46]And then again, as we get into the weekend, we continue to have scattered showers and thunderstorms. But again, by Sunday, we start to see some things changing. We get maybe a little bit of a pattern change there. A little bit drier air trying to work in so that by Monday, rain chances have lowered a good bit.

[00:09:00]But temperatures in the afternoon may actually increase a little bit with drier air. Temperatures in the morning may go come down a little bit though with slightly lower humidity. Southern half of the state, again, numerous showers and thunderstorms continue for the next several days. uh 60 70% rain chances uh all across the board. High still possibly getting in the low 80s.

[00:09:19]80s though, just given the fact that we're starting off so warm in the mornings in the upper 60s and low 70s.

[00:09:24]But again, by late weekend and into early next week, we do expect things to kind of back down a little bit from a rain chance perspective. That's your Alabama forecast update. We appreciate you watching us here on the Alabama Weather Network.