The Monday morning edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme video is available in the player below, and on iTunes:
A big upper air pattern flip means warmer weather in the days ahead, and unfortunately severe weather possibilities down the line.
SHORT TERM: Today should be a beautiful day across the state, with a big-time warm-up after a sub-freezing start this morning. Most communities will reach the upper 50s today, and I am sure some spots in West Alabama will touch 60. Then, we go up into the mid 60s tomorrow and Wednesday. Moist air will begin to return tonight, and we will bring in the chance of showers tomorrow and Wednesday as a couple of short waves move over the state. With the lifted index going below zero, you have to mention a chance of some thunder as well; maybe even a few strong storms by Wednesday with the second impulse. But, wind fields aren’t all that strong and SPC has not defined an organized threat at this time.
Thursday at this time looks dry and mild; a decent chance we go up unto the low 70s with a partly sunny sky. Quite a difference from last week when we could not get out of the mid 30s.
MAJOR SEVERE WEATHER THREAT: All eyes are on a major weather system that will impact much of the Deep South over the weekend. SPC has defined a severe weather threat for Friday through Sunday all the way from the eastern part of Texas and Oklahoma to the southern Atlantic coast. This one has potential to bring a significant outbreak of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes to the region; at this time the GFS is hinting that our primary threat here in Alabama will come sometime from 3:00 p.m. Saturday through 6:00 a.m. Sunday. Keep in mind the forecast times might change as we go along this week; trying to time a system like this coming out of the Southwest U.S. is very hard to do five days in advance.
If that is not enough, the GFS is advertising yet another severe weather threat in about 8 days, around Tuesday of next week (February 27).
This is Severe Weather Awareness Week in Alabama, and this is a great time to review your personal severe weather safety plan with your family. The annual statewide tornado drill is scheduled for Wednesday (unless we have strong storms in the area), and we will discuss in the next two days. I know the NWS theme for the week is : “In a matter of seconds, are you ready?â€. My theme is “FORGET THE SIRENS”. Every Alabama home must have a NOAA Weather Radio receiver to be safe, and this week we are rolling out our program designed to help hake this happen.
Every Handy TV and Publix location in the Birmingham TV market will have Midland NOAA Weather Radio receivers on sale for only $29.95 in coming weeks. These are top of the line receivers with the digital technology (Specific Area Message Encoding) that allows you to choose the counties for which the alarm sounds, and with a battery backup. All stores should have the Weather Radio receivers in stock by the middle of the week… we will have more here on the blog and on ABC 33/40.
STORM ALERT 2007: Our annual severe weather awareness tour comes to Jacksonville this week; we will be at Jacksonville High School Thursday evening; the show begins at 7:00 and the doors open at 5:00. We will have 20 NOAA Weather Radio receivers to give away, along with t-shirts for the first 500 there.
WEATHER PARTY: Keep up with the latest weather-related news on our sister site, weatherparty.com. Lots to read over there; be sure and register and you can submit links and vote on them to determine what shows up on the main page.
I will have the next Weather Xtreme video ready by 3:30 this afternoon… enjoy the warm-up today!
