The Friday morning edition of the Weather Xtreme video is available on the player below, or over on iTunes:
The sky did clear last night, but this morning fog has become an issue in spots with light wind, a very wet ground, and temperatures dropping to the dewpoint. Once the fog burns off, this will be a beautiful day with sunshine back in full force. We should see a high today somewhere between 58 and 62. Tomorrow will be very nice; a sunny sky with afternoon temperatures in the 60 to 65 degree range. Great day for Alabama’s biggest football game of the year, played this time down in Tuscaloosa.
SUNDAY/MONDAY: Another surge of cold air moves into the Deep South as the upper trough sharpens again, and an upper low forms in the base of that trough over Georgia and North Florida. Check out these values for Birmingham valid late Sunday night:
1000-500 mb thickness: 5323 meters
850 mb temperature (about 5,000 feet off the ground): -5.3 C (22.5 degrees F)
500 mb temperature: -24.8 C (-12.6 degrees F)
Just to make it fun, the NAM/WRF model (where those numbers are coming from) also prints 0.04″ of precipitation for Birmingham. So… am I saying we will get one-half inch of snow here? No. But, I do think you have to mention some risk of snow flurries at least for the higher elevations of East Alabama. Sure will be fun watching that Mt. Cheaha SKYCAM to see if we get our first snow flakes of the year. Some light rain or drizzle is possible for the rest of the state, mainly east of I-65, but it probably won’t amount to much.
Monday looks like a raw and cold day, possibly much like yesterday with temperatures holding in the low to mid 40s.
REST OF NEXT WEEK: A quiet weather pattern still looks likely for the Thanksgiving holiday; we will begin a slow warming trend on Tuesday, lasting through the end of the week. The 00Z GFS hints we might even try to touch 70 by Thanksgiving Day.
WATCHING ALASKA: Check out this report from Todd Foisy, one of our online weather watchers up in Alaska:
Girdwood, AK –
Report for Thursday:
High: 9.0° F
Low: -2.0° F
Snow: 0
Snow Depth: 6”
I should note your can see our weather watcher reports online anytime here. The air remains bitterly cold up there, which always bears watching during the cold weather season. A quick glance at the surface reports right now shows Delta Junction, AK as the cold spot with -29 F.
I will be up in Pinson/Center Point today helping to dedicate the new Southern Comfort Conversion facility with Governor Bob Riley; Southern Comfort built our Storm Chaser van several years ago, and Rod McSweeney is a great friend, and I am excited about their new plant. It the largest and most advanced conversion vehicle facility in the world with 532,000 square feet of space which is equivalent to over 12 acres. I am looking forward to seeing the place. This function will be held at 2:00 this afternoon, so I will be posting the afternoon discussion and video a tad early today so I can have time for that event! Enjoy your Friday…
