The Tuesday afternoon edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme video is available in the player below, and on iTunes:
SPECIAL NOTE: Most of you know we have been working through some bugs with our new server; we upgraded this past weekend so we can accommodate more traffic. One bug discovered this morning was that our podcast RSS feeds were not working; that meant all of our products were not being updated on iTunes, including the Weather Xtreme video and WeatherBrains. We just got that problem corrected, and all of our video and audio products are available now on iTunes. Lets hope that is the last bug! Short term pain, long term gain.
NICE WARM-UP: Birmingham has soared to 56 degrees at 2:00 p.m. Not bad, considering our low this morning was 26. Dry air really does heat and cool efficiently.
REST OF THE WEEK: Tonight won’t as cold as last night; in fact most places will stay above freezing for a change. Some of the colder spots over far Northeast Alabama night touch 32 sometime between 8:00 and 11:00 tonight, but most places will have a low in the mid to upper 30s as clouds increase. Tomorrow and Thursday will be mostly cloudy, but the chance of significant rain looks pretty small at this point with very little upper forcing, despite a surface cold front just north of here. Maybe a few sprinkles, but probably not much beyond that.
MORE COLD AIR: The latest NAM suggests we will be near 40 Friday morning at 6:00, with temperatures falling through the 30s during the day. That sure looks good to me considering the amount of cold air just north of here. Even some hint at a little light rain in the cold air late Thursday night or early Friday; any issues with sleet or freezing rain should be north of here, over far North Alabama into Tennessee. And, precipitation should be light so no big travel problems are expected for now.
THE WEEKEND: We will maintain a cold and dry forecast for the weekend with highs in the 40s and lows in the 20s. The JMA model (Japanese) makes me a little nervous, showing some rain here on Saturday with wintry precipitation north of Birmingham, but we will consider that an outlier for now. Let me caution you that this is a forecast fraught with danger; lots of things can go wrong in this complicated pattern, so be watching for quick changes.
LONG RANGE: The GFS continues to show two strong southern stream storm systems impacting the Southeast U.S.; one centered around February 14, and the other around Feb. 18. Both have potential for lots of rain and thunder in the warm sector, and snow in the cold sector. All of this is out in voodoo land now; so no way we can be specific. But, the pattern does favor this and somebody across the southern U.S. should have more snow issues before the month is over. Who? Louisville, Nashville, Memphis, Atlanta, Birmingham? We just don’t know, but the threat is out there.
STORM ALERT 2007: Our annual weather tour across Alabama comes to Blount County this week; we will be at Oneonta High School Thursday evening at 7:00… we hope to see you there. Read more about the tour and the details of this year’s show here.
WEATHER PARTY: See the latest weather related news over on our sister site, weatherparty.com. Plenty of good articles to read over there.
I enjoyed speaking to the Alabama Bed and Breakfast Association members this morning, and seeing lots of friends at the Montel Williams party this afternoon at The Club. I will have the next Weather Xtreme video posted by 7:00 a.m. tomorrow!
