An all new edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme video is available in the player on the right sidebar of the blog. You can subscribe to the Weather Xtreme video on iTunes by clicking here.
The high at the Birmingham International Airport yesterday was 50 degrees, just 4 degrees below the 30-year average for Christmas Day, so a slow moderation in our cold weather is underway. But as the upper air pattern remains locked into a long wave trough over the eastern half of the country, we’re not going to see any extreme warmth for the rest of 2013 or for the early days of 2014.
A surface high settles in across the Southeast today and Friday, but clouds will be on the increase Friday with the approach of a low latitude, southern stream short wave. This short wave will move by fairly quickly, but as it does it will generate a surface low in the Gulf of Mexico. That surface low will spread clouds and moisture across a good portion of the Southeast late Friday and into Saturday. The GFS and the ECMWF are in pretty good agreement on this system with good rain potential for Central Alabama from Saturday afternoon through noon time on Sunday. The upper short wave and surface low do move out briskly so we should see a quick end to the rain.
But this is where we begin to get some model differences. The GFS drops in a northern stream short wave that amplifies the long wave trough on Monday bringing another shot of Arctic air with it. Monday, if the GFS is correct, will be another one of those brutally cold days with temperatures struggling to stay in the 40s. The ECMWF brings in cold air, but not nearly as strongly as the GFS does. I think the GFS may have a better handle on this situation than the European. This would dip morning lows back into the 20s for the last day of 2013. The GFS also hints at some wintery precipitation to go with the cold air. I suspect this will be more in the form of clouds, but a few flurries will be possible if there is enough moisture coming along with the colder air.
The upper level pattern dampens just a bit on the 31st and 1st, but by the first of January another strong short wave is moving down the eastern side of the Rockies promising yet another round of cold air. And this short wave bears watching since it could generate another Gulf low around the 2nd with a winter weather event a strong possibility for parts of the Mid-South and the Southeast US. One caveat is that we are verging on voodoo country. The second caveat is that the GFS and the ECMWF disagree on the strength of the cold air. So our forecast does not reflect this line of thinking just yet. But this scenario is certainly a possibility with the active flow pattern we’ve been seeing together with the long wave trough position. So we’ll be watching it closely to see which model adjusts.
Peeking further into voodoo country, the GFS continues to stick with a cold pattern across the eastern US with a long wave trough and continuation of a series of fast moving short waves in that cold flow.
And you can follow news and weather updates from ABC 33/40 on Twitter here. Stay in the know by following the whole gang – here’s the list…
| James Spann | Charles Daniel | Ashley Brand |
| J. B. Elliott | Bill Murray | Brian Peters |
| E-Warn (AL wx watches/warnings) |
I hope you had a great Christmas Day. The next Weather Xtreme Video will be posted by 8 am or so on Friday morning. Enjoy the day and Godspeed.
-Brian-
