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J.B. will bring a complete list of lows around Alabama here a little later this morning, but most folks are down in the 8 to 18 degree range. My thermometer in North Shelby County shows 16 degrees as I write this; our Skywatcher up in Northeast Etowah County (Vic Bell in the community of Scrougeout) reports 9.3 degrees. That is Vic’s first single digit low since January 24, 2003, and only the third time this decade (since 1/1/2000) that he has dropped below 10.
Our Skywatcher in Hamilton is reporting 9 degrees as well.
Seems like yesterday it was August and we were burning up in the heat; now as J.B. writes, it seems like the whole northern hemisphere is freezing. Even much of Central Florida is dealing with a hard freeze this morning.
LOOKING AHEAD: Birmingham should rise above freezing late this morning; ending a period of about 36 consecutive hours at or below freezing (we went below freezing at 10:00 p.m. Tuesday night). We figure we will wind up in the low 40s this afternoon; winds will be much lighter than yesterday making the day feel much better. But, another hard freeze is ahead tonight. We are forecasting an average low of 20 degrees early tomorrow, but the valleys will be down in the teens again. Some of the colder spots near the Georgia border will be down in the 10 to 15 degree range again.
A pronounced warming trend begins tomorrow afternoon as we rise into the 50s, where we should be in early January.
THE WEEKEND: The warm-up continues through the weekend; we will be close to 60 Saturday afternoon, with mid 60s on Sunday. No rain despite a slow increase in moisture that will begin Sunday. To the west, big time mountain snow and valley rain will be the story over the western U.S., and how that system lifts out will determine how much rain we get at the middle of next week.
NEXT WEEK: The 06Z GFS continues to suggest the next rain event will come Wednesday of next week. It shows a strong, negative tilt upper trough rotating through here, and if this were March or April we could be concerned about severe weather. But, this is early January, and getting decent instability values in here this time of the year is pretty difficult. But, we will keep an eye on it. And, the good news is that this system will have the potential to bring one inch of rain to our state.
VOODOO SNOW STORM: The GFS is still showing a big storm in the January 13-14 time frame that would bring potential for rain changing to snow across Alabama. The snow fans sure get excited about this, but no need for any serious excitement over anything in the land of voodoo (beyond seven days). The run to run consistency has been very good lately, however.
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I will have the next Weather Xtreme video posted by 3:30 this afternoon… enjoy the day!
