The Wednesday morning edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme video is available in the player below, and on iTunes:
Once again a reminder we go into our holiday video schedule tomorrow; just one Weather Xtreme video per day through Monday January 1… we go back to two a days on Tuesday January 2, 2007.
ABOUT TO GET WET: Our lead storm (the one I called AL yesterday) is producing lots of rain and snow to the west this morning. The main snow band is from New Mexico and West Texas northward to Nebraska and South Dakota. Even some blizzard warnings for some of that region (western Nebraska and the southeast part of Wyoming). Rain covers much of Texas, and will keep moving into Louisiana and Arkansas today.
Around here, we will have a layer of high clouds overhead, but no rain. Afternoon temperatures will reach the 60s again.
TOMORROW/FRIDAY: Wet is the word for Alabama. The rain moves in tomorrow; the GFS is a little faster with the system so rain could be into West Alabama early in the day. The rain will be steady at times, and we still project average rain amounts of one to two inches. There could be some thunder, but no severe weather. The rain should begin to taper off Friday afternoon.
SATURDAY: The weather still looks mostly dry on Saturday… there could be some lingering rain early in the day, however. For the Papajohns.com Bowl at Legion Field Saturday, we project a kickoff temperature near 58 degrees (the game begins at 12:00 Noon), and for now the chance of significant rain looks small.
CHRISTMAS EVE/CHRISTMAS DAY: Our second storm (the one I called BOB yesterday) will bring another round of rain to the state. The GFS continues to trend more to the east and south with this one; that will lessen the chance of a White Christmas in the region from Dallas to Indianapolis. Looks like the rain begins Sunday afternoon and becomes widespread Sunday night into aerly Monday morning. The heaviest rain could very well be over the southern half of Alabama, but I still expect some generous amounts along the I-20 corridor. If we get two inches of rain Thursday and Friday, we might even have to watch for some flash flooding issues with this one.
The rain should end at some point Christmas morning, but clouds will probably linger all day. Temperatures should drift down into the 40s on Monday, making the weather feel more like Christmas. The kids might have to wait until the afternoon hours to try out those new bikes.
NEXT WEEK: Colder air moves into the state Monday night and Tuesday; the latest GFS MOS has a high of only 44 in Birmingham for Tuesday, and a low of 29 by Wednesday morning. Another weak front comes in here in the Thursday/Friday time frame with the chance of a little light rain, then a fresh shot of colder air.
LONG RANGE: Cold weather fans will love the whopping 1056 mb Arctic high over the Yukon at 384 hours. But, yep, its all voodoo now. We have noted some amazing cold over the pole in Siberia, with observations as cold as -65 degrees (F) in recent days. We will be watching that as we go into 2007.
JOIN THE PARTY: Lots of weather news to read over on our sister site, weatherparty.com. Be sure and register and you can submit stories and vote on them to determine what is published to the front page.
I will be speaking today at a safety meeting at the Gaston Steam Plant down in Wilsonville… I always enjoy visiting the Alabama Power generating facilities. I should have the afternoon video posted by 3:30 this afternoon….
