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CALMING DOWN: Following a night of high wind, heavy rain, and severe thunderstorms, today will be a day with a good supply of sunshine and relatively comfortable temperatures across our state. Pressure gradient winds were in the 20 to 40 mph last night, with gusts to 50 mph. The ridges most likely had gusts approaching hurricane strength, and accordingly many, many trees were blown down. I have to wonder how many Christmas decorations were dismantled by that wind last night. We are fortunate that there were no injuries to my knowledge; see a long list of severe weather and flooding reports from the National Weather Service here.
Temperatures are hovering around the 60 degree mark early this morning; we will fall back into the 50s during the next few hours, and then rise again to around 60 by the lunch hour with a decent amount of December sun.
MUCH COLDER TONIGHT AND TOMORROW: A shot of cold air coming across the vast snow pack to the north will invade Alabama tonight. Model MOS products in this case will probably be too warm due to the shallow nature of the cold air, the time of year, and the snow to the north. We will be in the mid 20s early tomorrow morning, almost 40 degrees colder than the readings we are seeing during the pre-dawn hours today. Then, we will struggle to get out of the 30s tomorrow despite a mostly sunny sky. We will be back in the 20s at daybreak Friday.
OUR NEXT RAIN: The next impulse will push rain into Alabama Friday night, possibly beginning as early as Friday afternoon. While we are still mentioning only a cold rain, I am concerned we will be really close to 32 at some point Friday night. Snow won’t be an issue here due to the depth of the cold air, but freezing rain and icing is something we can’t totally rule out. We will watch this closely, but ride with a cold rain for now. Rain is likely Friday night and much of the day Saturday, and it will be a rather raw day Saturday with daytime temperatures only in the 40s. And, the late model runs keep the overrunning going into Sunday, hinting that our dry forecast for Sunday might be in danger. Let’s look at the 12Z model runs before we make a change, but no doubt we might have to keep some risk of rain into the daytime hours on Sunday.
NEXT WEEK AND BEYOND: Monday looks dry, but yet another wet weather system will impact Alabama Tuesday. Looks like a rain event here, with some risk of snow to the north over Kentucky, and maybe parts of northern Tennessee. More cold air will follow that for the latter half of next week. The cold, unsettled weather pattern will likely continue through the rest of December. It will be a very interesting month for watching the weather in Alabama, and much of the nation.
BURIED BY SNOW: What a morning up north… how about this 5:00 a.m. observation in Sioux City, Iowa. Visibility near zero in blowing snow, a temperature of 6 degrees, a northwest wind gusting to 43 mph, and a wind chill index of 18 degrees below zero. This snow event of epic proportion has shut down most of Iowa and Wisconsin. And, it is only early December.
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I will be out at Paine Primary School in Trussville this morning doing a weather program; I will be back in the office by early afternoon, and the next Weather Xtreme video will be posted by 3:30 this afternoon. Enjoy the day!
