The Tuesday morning ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme video is available in the player below, and on iTunes:
The model trends are clear… the GFS and the ECMWF are pointing to a period of harshly cold weather for much of the continental U.S. in the January 31-February 10 time frame that will have major impacts on people and industry. Sure, those models can be wrong. But the consistency is excellent, and teleconnections suggest they might be on to a big story. Before we dive into that…
SHORT TERM: I firmly believe the GFS does not understand the STJ at all in the short term. MOS temps look horrible, and I don’t trust the sky cover forecast either. The MOS was ten degrees too warm yesterday; it might be just as wrong today. I still don’t think we see much sun today and tomorrow, and we will have a hard time getting out of the 40s. The models try to nudge really dry air in here with enough subsidence for lots of sunshine on Thursday, but I won’t buy that until I see it.
I will leave our forecast dry through Friday, but it looks like a moisture surge is coming up on the southern stream into Baja, and don’t be shocked if we see a few sprinkles or patches of light rain, mainly south of Birmingham, at some point in the next 72 hours.
THE WEEKEND: An Arctic front will move through Saturday night, and it might squeeze out a little light rain. Maybe even a few snow flurries for somebody in North Alabama. Then, colder air moves in Sunday and Monday. The GFS MOS numbers are laughable for those two days.
LONG RANGE: The GFS and the ECMWF pump a massive ridge northward over the western part of North America around the middle of next week, and that allows pure Arctic air with little modification to move into the “lower 48”. The 00Z GFS is hinting at an historic period of brutally cold weather for much of the nation in the February 2-6 time frame, including Alabama. The 00Z run is showing 850 mb temps (5,000 feet off the ground) of -30 C as far south as the Tennessee Valley. Even if this is a gross error we will still have very, very cold air (I do think this run went a little overboard). The AO and the NAO show a big flip to negative in this time frame, and there is no doubt something big is up. Nope, we cannot resolve details; you know this is voodoo. But there is skill at understanding the pattern beyond seven days, and the pattern is screaming cold. The kind of cold that will make headlines in many ways, and cause lots of hardship in various parts of the U.S.
And yep, there will be some snow/ice opportunities along the way for PARTS of the Deep South, in my humble opinion. No way to be specific now.
Every model run will look different… don’t focus on that. Just focus on the pattern.
I strongly suggest you want until the middle of February before fire off the nasty e-mails letting me know that nobody else is talking about this… etc… As I have always stated here I am not here to agree with anyone else, or make anybody happy or sad. I am simply here to tell you what I think the weather will do. Nothing more, nothing less.
NOTES: If you missed the Glenn Beck show last night it is on the main ABC 33/40 page here. I was scheduled to be on Hannity and Colmes, Fox and Friends, and John Gibson’s show on Fox News Channel, but just like magic I was told by all three producers that I was dropped from their lineups. I am sure somebody around here didn’t want me on that network, and no hard feelings. Trust me, I am about the most boring TV interview in the universe, and time is very hard to find these days. Lets all take a big deep breath and move on.
WEATHERBRAINS: We have posted the new edition of WeatherBrains, our weekly 30 minute netcast. Check it out on the web or on iTunes.
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Yet another very busy day ahead… headed for T.S. Boyd school in Dora this morning for a weather program, and then it is on to Briarwood Christan for another program on meteorology. I should have the afternoon discussion and video posted on time, by 3:30 this afternoon. The great Alabama weather legend J.B. Elliott will be at the helm while I am out…
