The Wednesday afternoon edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme video is available in the player below, and on iTunes:
The rain is knocking on our door as I write this discussion this afternoon. Looks like rain will begin to fall over West Alabama tonight, becoming widespread statewide tomorrow. This will be a long duration event with rain late tonight, much of the day tomorrow, and much of the day Friday. The WRF/NAM model is printing 0.77″ for Birmingham during these two days, but the GFS is much more aggressive with 2.62″. The truth is probably somewhere between those two figures… we still figure that most communities will see between one and two inches of rain, with isolated amounts over two inches in a few spots. No severe weather, but some thunder will be possible.
SATURDAY: Still looks like we have a break in the rain on Saturday. Clouds might linger much of the day, but the big rain shield should be mostly east of Alabama by mid-morning. The high Saturday afternoon should be in the low 60s.
CHRISTMAS EVE/CHRISTMAS DAY: The GFS continues to show a very robust surface low forming in the northern Gulf of Mexico on Sunday, moving from south of New Orleans to near Apalachicola, and on to Savannah by Christmas Day. If we had cold air in place, that is a very favorable track for significant snow over North Alabama. But, no cold air means lots of rain. With the models continuing to shift this system southward, it looks like the heaviest rain will Sunday night along and south of I-59. Northwest Alabama might escape much of the rain Sunday night, in places like Hamilton, Haleyville, and Moulton. The heavier rain amounts should come over the southern half of the state, where some strong storms might even form.
The rain will end from west to east Christmas morning as colder slips into the Deep South. It still looks like we hover in the 40s all day Monday with a cool north breeze. A few snow flurries are not out of the question Monday night over far Northeast Alabama, but they shouldn’t bring any problems.
LONG RANGE: Looks like a little rain will be possible on Thursday December 28, but the next big rain event seems to be shaping up for the following weekend (December 30-31). Watch the video for the day by day breakdown.
BIG TIME SNOW: Watching the national newscasts, you would think the entire nation is in some kind of heat wave. Tell that to our friends in Denver… they have been in blizzard conditions much of the day; right now heavy snow is falling with 25 degrees and winds gusting to 40 mph. Parts of the city will wind up with about two feet of snow. The snow is falling as far south as New Mexico, and as far north as South Dakota.
See late reports on the storm on our sister site, weatherparty.com…
I sure enjoyed my time today at the Gaston Steam Plant down in Wilsonville; I spoke at the monthly plant safety meeting during the lunch hour. And, a reminder, we are going to a holiday video schedule beginning tomorrow. We will produce only one Weather Xtreme video per day through Monday January 1, 2007. The blog will updated frequently as always…
If you are headed out of town be safe and have a wonderful Christmas!
