The Tuesday morning edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme video is available in the player below, and on iTunes:
Anyone remember this song?
“But February made me shiver
With every paper I’d deliver.
Bad news on the doorstep;
I couldn’t take one more step.”
Much of the eastern half of the nation continues to shiver, and we can be thankful we are just on the far southern periphery of the brutally cold air that covers the Great Lakes and the northeast part of the nation. Cook, Minnesota reports 31 below zero right now (5:00 a.m.), and I see some numbers up in Canada as cold as -42 (F). I note that Duluth, MN tied a record on Sunday that went all the way back to 1896.
This is the idea we presented here a couple of weeks ago; parts of the nation will have the coldest air they have seen in decades.
Understand the pattern will deamplify in coming days, but the general idea of a western ridge and eastern trough will remain on the board for the rest of the month, and with a screaming southern branch undercutting the cold air the possibility of winter storms will also remain on the table for somebody across the southern U.S. in coming weeks. Last week’s ice and snow impacted Memphis, Nashville, Huntsville, Knoxville, Asheville, Greenville (SC), and Charlotte. No way of knowing who gets the next one, which will come next week.
SHORT TERM: We should make it up into the low 50s today, with mid 50s likely tomorrow. Almost like a tropical heat wave. Clouds will slowly increase, and the sky should be mostly cloudy tonight and tomorrow as a cold front gradually approaches from the north. A little scattered light rain is possible with this surface boundary tomorrow, Thursday, or Friday, but the upper forcing is nil, and moisture is very limited. Needless to say, rainfall will be light and spotty, and some spots, especially south of Birmingham, will see no rain at all.
We also note the freeze line at 850 mb (about 5,000 feet) drops down to U.S. 72 (Muscle Shoals to Huntsville) by Thursday night and Friday, so anything that falls north of there might come in the form of sleet or light freezing rain, but it is doubtful that there will be enough precipitation to produce any problems.
THE WEEKEND: For now the weekend looks dry but chilly, with highs in the 44 to 49 degree range and lows in the 20s. MOS products remain too warm.
LONG RANGE: The 06Z run of the GFS paints two runners (storms that run from the northern Gulf of Mexico into the Atlantic, then moving parallel to the east coast of the U.S.) in coming weeks; one in the Feb 14-15 time frame, and another one Feb 19-20. If those do materialize, they will have the chance to bring a snow threat to somebody across the southeast U.S. A great example of what can happen with this pattern.
FIXED: Yesterday was like being in the Twilight Zone as a routing problem had the new server and the old server BOTH serving blog pages at random times. But, that has been fixed and we are back in business. All posts and comments will be there and stay there today. Thanks to Trey Nolen for his help yesterday.
STORM ALERT 2007: We will see you Thursday night at Oneonta at the high school auditorium… the show begins at 7:00; doors open at 5:00. See the details here.
WEATHER PARTY: Always something interesting to read over on our sister site, weatherparty.com. While you are there be sure and register and you can submit stories and vote on them to determine which ones are published to the front page.
We recorded a new WeatherBrains show last night… we feature NWS and EMA folks from Central Florida impacted by last Friday’s horrible tornado event. Very interesting show… it will be posted here shortly.
Busy day ahead… I will be speaking this morning to the Alabama Bed and Breakfast Association at the Medical Forum downtown, and then at lunch I have a function with Montel Williams at The Club. I will be back in the office by early afternoon and I should have the afternoon edition of the Weather Xtreme video posted on time by 3:30. Enjoy the day!
