textproduct: NWS Birmingham

KEY MESSAGES

Issued at 1157 AM CDT FRI JUL 17 2026

- Thunderstorms: Medium to high rain and thunderstorm chances expected over the weekend.

- Heat: Minor to moderate heat risk through the weekend, transitioning to a major heat risk early next week with heat indices potentially reaching 105 degrees.

DISCUSSION

(This afternoon through Thursday) Issued at 1157 AM CDT FRI JUL 17 2026

Not a lot of changes in the forecast today as the ridging is expected to persist through the next several days. Low to medium rain chances are expected generally for the eastern half of Central AL today and tomorrow as we're on the eastern edge of the main ridge with the trough to our northeast. We also have the tropical disturbance in the Northeastern Gulf that will slowly meander and get picked up by the main trough over the weekend. This will at least pull in some tropical moisture into Central AL for higher rain chances on Sunday. As we go into next week, the disturbance has shifted well to the east and the main ridging remains in place slightly to our west. This will lead to a gradual warming trend Monday through Thursday. Daytime highs are forecast to increase into the mid to upper 90s by Tuesday and Wednesday. However, there's still a decent amount of uncertainty with these high temperatures as diurnal thunderstorm activity and cloud cover might limit the daytime heating. We'll need to monitor Tuesday and Wednesday especially as heat indices could approach or exceed 105 depending on the temperature trends in the forecast.

25/Owen

AVIATION

(18Z TAFS) Issued at 1157 AM CDT FRI JUL 17 2026

We've started to see isolated shower development for the eastern half of Central AL over the past hour. I expect this trend to continue with a few isolated thunderstorms developing closer to peak heating in the 21-00z timeframe. I'll continue to highlight these as Prob30s for BHM, EET, MGM, and AUO. Most of the activity should remain east of TCL, so I won't include mention there. These showers and thunderstorms should diminish in coverage generally after 01-03z leading to mostly clear conditions through the remainder of the evening and night. The pattern doesn't change much for tomorrow, so I'll keep a similar trend for dirunal wind increases as we've seen, increasing winds to 8-10kts after 16z tomorrow.

Note: AMD NOT SKED for KAUO due to a weather observation outage.

25/Owen

FIRE WEATHER

The warm and humid air mass will continue through the next several days across Central AL. Increasing tropical moisture associated with a weak disturbance in the Eastern Gulf is expected across the area over the weekend, which will increase rain chances each afternoon, especially for the eastern half of Central AL. There are no critical fire weather concerns at this time.

PRELIMINARY POINT TEMPS/POPS

Gadsden 91 72 92 73 / 50 20 30 20 Anniston 90 72 91 73 / 50 20 30 20 Birmingham 91 74 94 75 / 40 20 20 20 Tuscaloosa 93 74 94 75 / 10 10 10 10 Calera 94 73 96 74 / 30 20 20 20 Auburn 90 74 91 74 / 50 20 30 30 Montgomery 93 74 94 75 / 30 20 20 30 Troy 91 73 93 73 / 30 20 40 50

BMX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.