Every year, Conde Nast Traveler asks readers to vote on the friendliest cities in the United States for its Readers’ Choice Awards. For 2024, one Alabama city made the Top 10 alongside destinations such as Chicago, Charleston and Santa Fe.

Readers piped up for a spot on Alabama’s “beautiful, underrated Gulf Coast:” Mobile.

Alabama’s Port City came in at No. 5 on a list topped by Chattanooga, Tenn. There’s a slight glitch here, as Mobile allegedly “fell onto many travelers’ radars in 2024 when Amtrack unveiled its Gulf Coast service, connecting Mobile to New Orleans.”

Hold up there, Casey Jones: It’s not “now easier than ever to visit this slice of Alabama,” at least not quite yet, because they just held a groundbreaking for the service in late October. Even U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg couldn’t say with certainty when the “all aboard” call will come. (Spring 2025 seems likely.)

That said, the larger point stands. As the Traveler piece puts it, the rail connection comes at a time when Mobile “has begun respectfully highlighting its past through cultural moments such as the Isom Clemon Civil Rights Memorial Park and Clotilda: The Exhibition, a landmark show telling the story of the last ship carrying enslaved people through the lens of its survivors.”

According to the article, this is Mobile’s first time to make the list, which featured nearby Pensacola in 2023. The full gallery can be found at www.cntraveler.com.

DRY, MILD MONDAY: With a partly sunny sky, we are forecasting a high in the upper 70s for north Alabama today, with low 80s for the southern counties. The average high for Birmingham on Nov. 4 is 69.

Moisture will increase in coming days, and we will bring in a chance of scattered showers and thunderstorms Tuesday and each day through Friday as a surface front stalls out just to the northwest. Rain distribution won’t be very even, but any one spot will see a 40-50% chance of seeing rain each day. Highs will stay between 77 and 81 degrees across Alabama.

THE ALABAMA WEEKEND: There is a huge amount of uncertainty due to model differences in handling the tropical system in the Gulf of Mexico. The American Global Forecast System model suggests Saturday will bring widespread, beneficial rain, while the European global model shows little rain as it keeps the tropical system far to the southwest. We will have much better clarity over the next 36-48 hours; for now, we will mention a chance of rain Saturday, with a trend toward drier weather Sunday. Highs over the weekend will be in the 70s.

TROPICS: Potential Tropical Cyclone 18 is in the Caribbean, about 260 miles south of Kingston, Jamaica. Winds are 35 mph, and the system is expected to become Tropical Storm Rafael over the next 24 hours.

The latest National Hurricane Center forecast track brings it over the western tip of Cuba as a Category 1 hurricane Wednesday, and into the southern Gulf of Mexico Thursday. From there, weakening is likely due to cooler sea-surface temperatures and stronger winds aloft, producing shear. It is too early to know whether Alabama will see beneficial rain; it is just one possibility. We will have much better clarity once the system becomes organized and we get dropsonde data from hurricane hunters.

ON THIS DATE IN 1935: A Category 2 storm called the Yankee Hurricane affected the Bahamas and south Florida. The storm remains the only tropical cyclone to hit Miami from the northeast in November.

ON THIS DATE IN 1985: The remnants of tropical storm Juan dropped 10 to 19 inches of rain on West Virginia and surrounding states, causing 62 deaths. A maximum rainfall amount of 19.77 inches was recorded near Montebello in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. The flood in West Virginia was considered the worst in the state’s history.

For more weather news and information from James Spann and his team, visit AlabamaWx.