The Sunday edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme Video is available in the player below, and on iTunes:
Christmas Eve!! I remember as a kid how time seemed to stand still when it came to Christmas. The start of school always got here fast and summer vacations flew by, but when it came to waiting for Christmas, time just began to crawl in anticipation of the Big Day!! Such is one of the joys of Christmas to see the smiles on the faces of our children. But we should never lose sight of the real meaning of Christmas and perhaps try to keep that meaning in our lives throughout the rest of the year.
Interesting weather pattern to deal with over the next several days. The surface low pressure system has developed in the Northwest Gulf of Mexico, and clouds will be on the increase across the Southeast. Rain should become widespread across Central Alabama overnight tonight and Christmas Day. The 06Z GFS model run places the low center over Huntsville at midday on Christmas Day, so the rain should be diminishing during the latter part of the day. Looks like the timing of the low passage will allow temperatures to climb a little on Christmas day with highs around the middle 50s.
As the low continues to track northeastward, the counter clockwise circulation will pull some cold air in supported by strong northwesterly flow aloft. The result will be some wrap around moisture and the potential for snow flurries across northern Alabama, generally north of the Birmingham area. Snow flurries means that we do not anticipate any travel problems, and even if we got a little burst of snow the ground is so warm that everything should melt. Now further north into Tennessee they are expecting an inch or so with one to two inches into Kentucky. The main problem will be forecasting the exact track of the low. It is always a problem to forecast the exact timing of the arrival of the cold air and the departure of the moisture. With enough wrap around moisture snow flurries look like a pretty good bet across the northern third of Alabama on Christmas evening and into the morning hours on Tuesday.
The low tracks into the Northeast US and brings some travel concerns for that area while we dry out though clouds are expected to linger on Tuesday. Dry conditions return for sure on Wednesday and Thursday before the next system brings rain chances late on Friday and into Saturday. So our weather pattern is going to remain active through the end of the year.
And if the long range progs are correct, the pattern will remain active into the first week of 2007 with a series of storm systems about every three days.
I’ll be filling in on the 5 and 10 pm newscast tonight for John Oldshue, so I hope you’ll have the chance to join us.
That will do it for the Weather Xtreme Video. I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas from all of us on the ABC 3340 Weather Team. And we’re excited about all the possibilities for the upcoming New Year. I hope you have a great Christmas. God bless.
-Brian-
