The Thursday morning edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme video is available in the player below, and on iTunes:
Scattered showers are showing up on radar this morning over the western part of the state, and we are getting ready for the first rain event of the New Year. Showers today should be fairly scattered, and the most widespread rain will arrive tonight into tomorrow morning. No real change in our thinking; amounts of one to two inches will be common over the northern half of the state, with some spots getting over two inches of rain over Southwest Alabama in the general area from York south to Mobile. The most widespread and steady rain should come from about 8:00 tonight through 11:00 tomorrow morning.
The air will be too stable here for severe weather problems; the severe weather threat today and tonight will be confined to the immediate Gulf coast.
The rain will taper off from west to east during the midday hours tomorrow, and at this point we believe the weather will be mostly dry tomorrow night into the day Saturday. However, a sliver of moisture will remain and a few isolated showers will be possible, so we sure can’t rule out the chance of rain completely. The weather stays mild on Saturday; in fact the GFS is hinting we might reach the low 70s Saturday afternoon with a few peeks of sunshine during the day. Not bad for a winter day.
MORE RAIN SUNDAY: The next wave coming from the FCSM (Four Corners Storm Machine) will bring another soaking rain to the state on Sunday. This one will bring at least one inch of rain, and like the system tonight there is not enough instability for severe weather. That batch of rain should taper off late Sunday night.
NEXT WEEK: Monday will be a day with cold air advection, meaning only gradual clearing and temperatures struggling to reach the low 50s with a cool north breeze. Tuesday and Wednesday will be dry and cool with temperatures close to normal levels for early January (50s/30s); a light freeze will be possible both mornings.
DOWN THE ROAD: Both the GFS and the ECMWF develop a cold, long wave trough over the western half of the nation in about a week, which makes sense with the current positive phase of the NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation). This sets up an interesting battle zone between the cold trough out west, and the warm ridge over Florida and the Southeast U.S. This will probably mean a nasty snow/ice event for parts of the Plains and the Upper Midwest in the January 13-15 time frame, and some potential for en extended heavy rain event for the Deep South from January 15-19.
We note that rivers are generally running high across Alabama, and the ground will become even more saturated with the rain we expect in coming days, so there will be some concern over flooding issues here at mid-month with this setup.
WEATHERPARTY.COM: Check out our sister site for the latest weather related news, there is always something fun to read over there if you like weather. We want you to be involved; if you register then you can submit links to weather related stories and sites, and vote on the links already submitted to determine what is published on the front page.
These are busy days… after the Christmas vacation we are hard at work on getting the Storm Alert 2007 tour ready; we hope to announce the schedule within a few days (all of the shows will be in February). As always, the tour will be in February in various locations around the state; it is your chance to meet our weather team and learn a little more about Alabama weather. Ashley Brand, who joins us late this month, will be on the tour with us this year. We started the Storm Alert tour way back in 1997, and it is a big highlight of the year for us.
I will have the next Weather Xtreme video posted by 3:30 this afternoon!
