Getting ready to get back in the saddle early tomorrow at the insane hour of 4:52 a.m., when my alarm goes off weekdays. Just wanted to make a few points before we get into a long week of Arctic cold…
*Our live weather chat is available here. Remember, no profanity, personal attacks, or trouble making. And, no impersonating allowed. If you log in with one of our names, or the name of a famous person, you won’t be able to return. This is all about weather, just enjoy and have fun. You are encouraged to pick a random name for privacy, but don’t pick “jspann”, “nicksaban”, etc. We are not able to monitor that chat session all the time, but we do have a team of moderators helping us. This is just a way weather geeks can communicate in real time. I will let you know when I am available on the chat to answer questions and interact with you in coming days.
*There is no skill, and I mean NO skill in identifying specific snow bands four days before a winter weather event in Alabama. Sure, we all have fun speculating and guessing, but we are not in the guessing business here. So, you won’t see any specific snow total forecasts until about 72 hours before the event. Even then the skill is marginal.
*We have lots of people who are sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for each individual computer model to roll in four times a day. This is part of the fun of being a weather geek, but at this phase of the game pattern recognition, analogs, and model ensemble output is the most important.
*We always love to hear from our readers/viewers, but we are not particularly interested in what other local TV stations, the NWS, and other private sector weather firms are forecasting. We are extremely busy during weeks like this, and all we can do is focus on delivering the best information and forecasts to you. If something we post here doesn’t jive up with another forecast entity, you will need to ask them their reasoning. I will have a complete Weather Xtreme video posted here by 6:30 a.m. tomorrow that will explain our products. And, of course, we generate two of those videos a day year round so you will understand where we are coming from. The purpose of this blog, and those videos, is to raise the curtain so you will see what we are thinking and seeing.
*The one thing we do know about the week is that the Arctic cold will be long lasting and bring potential to be a threat to human life. If you know an elderly person without an adequate source of heat, please take the time to check on them. The other big threat is house fires, many of which begin due to improper use of space heaters. Let’s all be careful this week; we don’t want to hear about tragic fires.
I will have a full weather discussion and Weather Xtreme video posted by 6:30 a.m. tomorrow… see you then!
