James Spann: Hot, humid summer weather continues in Alabama with isolated afternoon storms

THE HEAT IS ON: Hot summer weather continues to be the weather headline for Alabama and the Deep South. Highs will be in the mid 90s today and Wednesday, and much of the state is under a heat advisory due to the potential for heat indices near 105 at times thanks to the high dew points. You will always have a risk of a shower or thunderstorm during the peak of the afternoon heating this time of the year, but they should be isolated today. Odds of any one spot seeing rain this afternoon is only 15-25%.

We will see a slow increase in the number of afternoon showers and storms over the latter half of the week as the upper ridge over the region weakens a bit. Heat levels will fall; by Friday, highs will be between 88 and 92 degrees.

THE WEEKEND: Very routine summer weather is the story for the weekend and through most of next week — partly sunny, hot, humid days with scattered, mostly afternoon and evening showers and thunderstorms. Highs will be mostly in the low 90s over the weekend, with mid 90s through next week.

TROPICS: The Atlantic basin remains very calm and tropical storm formation is not expected through at least the next seven days.

ON THIS DATE IN 1993: The levee holding back the flooding Mississippi River at Kaskaskia, Illinois, ruptured, forcing the town’s people to flee on barges. The incident at Kaskaskia was the most dramatic event of the flood. At 9:48 a.m., the levee broke, leaving the people of Kaskaskia with no escape route other than two Army Corp of Engineers barges. By 2 p.m., the entire town was underwater.

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