The Monday morning edition of the Weather Xtreme video is available in the player below, and also on iTunes:
BUNDLE UP TODAY: Temperatures today will be about 15 to 20 degrees below normal for mid November in Alabama. A strong upper trough continues to dig down through the Deep South, and an upper air low will cut off over North Florida tonight. While the sun might peek out at times today, we figure the sky will be mostly cloudy, and north winds will gust as high as 25 to 30 mph during the day. Temperatures will have a hard time reaching the mid to upper 40s, and that wind will make it feel even colder.
Some flurries or drizzle is possible over the northeast part of the state this morning, but looks like most of that will remain over Tennessee and Georgia.
By tomorrow morning we should be in the 27 to 32 degree range. Interesting to note that we have not “officially” reached freezing this season in Birmingham; the coldest temperature so far at the Birmingham Airport is 33 recorded on November 3 and November 13. But, a large percentage of North Alabama has dropped below freezing; many of the colder valleys have visited the mid 20s a number of times since October.
Dry and cool weather is the story tomorrow and Wednesday. The big upper storm will move only slowly northward during the first half of the week, and it could send some clouds into the far eastern part of the state, near the Georgia border. But, most spots should enjoy a good supply of sunshine on these days, with low 50s tomorrow and upper 50s on Wednesday.
THANKSGIVING DAY: Looks very nice. Mostly sunny and mild, with a high well into the 60s, possibly approaching 70 degrees. The weather will remain dry for the big shopping day on Friday, and most of the weekend ahead.
LONG RANGE: Looks like our next big ticket items will come as December arrives. The 06Z GFS is advertising very deep storms around December 1 and December 5 that would bring the chance of strong storms and heavy rain, followed by a shot of very cold air, and some risk of rain changing to snow before the storms exit the region. Sure makes you go HMMMMMM.
I have gotten about two dozen e-mails from people asking me my opinion on the coming winter season; most of you know I wrote my winter ideas back in October… so I guess I need to revisit them. I was going to write a few thoughts on this post, but I am not at my best on Monday morning since I am usually away from weather data most of the weekend (family time, you know). I will plan on a winter post at some point tonight, before 9:30 p.m. Maybe as early as 6:30 p.m. You actually can’t see the old winter post now since we changed blog formats, and for now I have the old blog down as we try to archive all those posts on the old format from 2004 to 2006. Lots of Alabama history there; we don’t want to lose it.
WHERE ARE YOU? Don’t forget to put down a pin on our Frappr map so we can see where our readers come from… it will be fun to watch the map fill up in coming days with our blog family… while most are in Alabama, we have them scattered all over the world!
WEATHER PARTY: Check out our sister site, weatherparty.com, for the latest weather stories. Remember, if you register you can submit stories and vote on them to determine which ones are published to the main page.
I am off to Attalla this morning to speak to the kids at Stowers Hill Intermediate School; that is a Thanksgiving week tradition that goes back many years. I always have a great time there. The afternoon Weather Xtreme video should be posted on time, by 3:30 this afternoon!
