National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office

A semi-permanent upper level pattern featured a ridge over the Southwest United States and a trough generally along and east of the Mississippi River. This allowed a few weak surface fronts to penetrate into the Deep South and stall over the Southeast. These features combined to pool moisture over the region. The end result produced scattered shower and thunderstorm activity across Central Alabama many afternoons. Although most locations still experienced rainfall deficits for July, these deficits were much less than the previous few months in most locations, but were far from what was necessary to relieve the drought conditions. Rainfall totals averaged from 2 to 5 inches, with some localized areas receiving 6 to 9 inches. Additionally, average temperatures for July were at or below normal due to the increased moisture, cloud cover, the trough and convective activity during the afternoon hours.

A cold front actually pushed all the way to the Gulf Coast on July 22nd with surface high pressure ridging from the Great Lakes into the Southeast. This produced some of the coldest temperatures of the month. On the mornings of July 22nd and 23rd, most locations experienced temperatures in the mid 50s and lower 60s around sunrise. These temperatures were on the order of 10 degrees below normal.

Even though many locations actually received beneficial rainfall in July, the drought conditions continued. The rain that fell across Central Alabama only temporarily mitigated the dry conditions. Drought conditions were in the D3-Extreme Drought to D4-Exceptional Drought for much of the month. While the rainfall temporarily greened up some lawns and gave life to some gardens, stream-flows and lake levels saw no substantial gain. Central Alabama agricultural impacts remained substantial with a large percentage of corn, cotton, soybeans, peanuts, livestock and pasture in poor to very poor condition.

One thing that did improve in July was the wildfire hazard. The Alabama Forestry Commission dropped the Drought Emergency and Fire Alert for all of Central Alabama and replaced it with a Fire Alert for counties roughly north of an Alexander City to Tuscaloosa line.

Severe weather occurrences were fairly typical of mid summer. Strong thunderstorms and wet microbursts knocked a few trees and power lines down on July 1st, 2nd, 7th, 9th, 10th, 14th, 20th, 23rd, 25th and 29th. No tropical activity developed in the Gulf of Mexico and no tornadoes were reported areawide.