The Tuesday afternoon ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme video is available in the player below, and on iTunes:
RAIN MOVING IN: At the time of this update rain is falling along and west of a line from Cullman to McCalla to Brent to Faunsdale. Our Tuscaloosa SKYCAM has measured .10″ downtown at the Tuscaloosa County Courthouse. The rain will continue to spread east, reaching Anniston and Gadsden by 3:30.
There is very little lightning associated with this rain, but we do note the NWS in Mobile has issued a tornado warning for Choctaw County, down in Southwest Alabama. Severe weather up this way is very unlikely with limited instability and marginal wind fields.
Rainfall amounts of around one-half inch are likely, with isolated amounts to 3/4 inch. Most of the rain will be east of the state by 9:00 tonight; the rain has already ended up in the northwest corner of the state at Muscle Shoals.
ANOTHER LONG DRY SPELL AHEAD: After tonight, our weather looks dry all the way through Wednesday of next week. And, the weather will be exceptionally mild with daily highs in the 68 to 76 degree range. Looks like low 70s will be the story for much of this period; that is about 15 degrees above normal for mid-December in Alabama. We might even flirt with record highs on a few days.
LONG RANGE: The GFS continues to hint at some rain at times in the December 21-24 time frame, followed by some colder air for Christmas. But, nothing really cold as the upper air winds will keep the really cold air bottled up over the northern half of the continent. As we have discussed here for weeks, the neutral to positive NAO will keep the cold air at bay for a while. But, there are signs that the gates to the Yukon might open up again toward the end of this month, or the beginning of January. Keep in mind the winter season doesn’t officially arrive until 6:22 p.m. on December 21. That is the shortest day of the year in terms of the number of daylight hours.
TORNADO WARNING MARENGO: The NWS in Birmingham has just issued a tornado warning for far South Marengo County for the storm coming out of Choctaw. This will impact the Alabama 10 corridor, well to the south of Demopolis and Linden. Gotta run so I can do a quick TV break on this.
I will have the next video posted by 7:00 a.m. tomorrow!
