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I really love it when a forecast shapes up pretty much the way you thought it would. The rain which the ABC 3340 Weather Team has been touting for several days is headed our way. Radar this morning showed a large area of rain from Kentucky southwestward into Texas. I would expect to see the rain reaching extreme west Alabama shortly after noon and then spreading across Central Alabama around 2 or 3 pm. The rain unfortunately will not be around long, so rainfall amounts of a quarter to a half inch is about the best we can expect. Every little bit helps, but with a deficit of over two feet, it won’t help much.
Severe weather is a possibility along the immediate Gulf Coast. As is often the case, we’ll need to watch how far north the deeper moisture will travel, but at this writing it does not appear likely that the severe weather threat will come very far north. Moisture from the remnants of Olga will actually get drawn up into the system across North Florida and the Georgia/South Carolina coastal areas.
Tomorrow will be dominated by cold air advection. Temperatures should hover in the 40s for Central Alabama. And with a strong northwesterly wind, it is going to feel really, really cold. Remember those record highs were only a few days ago. This system is going to produce a real mess for our friends from the Ohio River Valley northeastward into New England. Winter Storm Watches, Advisories, and Warnings are posted for a large swath of the US from Amarillo, Texas, to Bangor, Maine. If you have to travel that direction in the next couple of days, take an extra patience pill!!
High pressure at the surface migrates across the area through the middle of the week keeping our weather chilly and dry. Surface moisture returns beginning Wednesday as we warm up some and with the approach of a fairly fast moving short wave we can expect to see reasonably good rain chances on Thursday. Once again, though, the system will be moving through quickly, so I do not expect any significant rain.
I should quit here – but I won’t!! As we head into voodoo country, the GFS has some wonderful solutions to make a weatherman’s Christmas!! Before I say a word, please remember that Birmingham has never really experienced a true White Christmas is the classic sense – snow falling and accumulation on the ground. That’s experience speaking – historical fact!!
Another storm system rears it’s ugly head late Friday and into Saturday. This system is forecast to plunge cold air southward across West Texas. A front with some rain should come through here late Saturday and into Sunday. And once again the cold air should arrive just as the moisture leaves so we could see snow flurries again. But a new low latitude cold core closed low on Christmas eve and Christmas day promises to produce a Gulf low, one situated in nearly a perfect position for a Southeast US snow storm. The GFS depicts the possibility of snow on Christmas day. This really is voodoo country. And then the GFS is stuck on a theme with another northwest Gulf storm around the 29th of December. I’m probably going to have to resort to naming these storms to keep them straight!!
Enough of that madness for now. Enjoy the rain and get ready for a couple of really cold days. Take a snow pill or whatever and I’ll be back tomorrow morning with another edition of the Weather Xtreme Video. And quite possibly the GFS will have a whole new solution for us!! Have a great day and God bless.
-Brian-
