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A BIG SOAKING: The one thing for sure is that Alabama will receive beneficial rain in coming days. The latest NAM is printing a whopping 4.46″ for Birmingham during the next 84 hours. If that is right, we could even have some flooding issues before the week is over. As always, I encourage you to watch the Weather Xtreme video for complete details.
This will be a two-punch event; lets deal with them one at a time…
PHASE ONE: Southerly winds will increase across Alabama today in advance of the storm system; winds could gust as high as 30 mph this afternoon. While a few afternoon showers are possible, the main action today will be to the west, where severe storms and a few tornadoes are likely over parts of Louisiana and Mississippi. The highest tornado probabilities are running along the I-20 corridor in North Louisiana.
The band of storms should enter Northwest Alabama sometime in the 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 midnight time frame, then progressing slowly across the state after midnight. The slow movement of the rain/storm area could easily mean over two inches of rain, but the main focus will be on the potential for severe weather.
Here are some severe weather parameters for Birmingham around 3:00 a.m.:
Surface based CAPE: 322 j/kg
2M dewpoint: 66F
0 to 3 km helicity: 381 m2/s2
850 mb wind (around 5,000 feet): 57 knots
No doubt we will have potential for severe storms with numbers like that (considering the time of year and the time of day). While the prime threat will come from damaging straight line winds, an isolated tornado can’t be ruled out.
So, everyone needs to have their NOAA Weather Radio receiver active tonight so the alarm will sound in the event warnings are needed. Of course, we will have our office staffed through the night. The rain will taper off tomorrow morning over the northern half of the state.
ROUND TWO: The models are faster with the second phase of our complex storm system, bringing in the rain Thursday into Thursday night. This will be a cool rain; looks like we will be in the 40s all day Thursday with periods of rain. An additional one inch of rain is very possible.
A cold core upper low will be involved with the Thursday system, and we all know that a cold core upper low is a weatherman’s woe. Those things can produce dynamic cooling that can bring surprise snow flakes; it is happened before, and will happen again. While temperatures in the lower 5,000 feet seemingly won’t support snow, cooling from above can change things quickly.
Understand, I am sure not going there now, and we are not mentioning snow flakes in the forecast. Let’s get tonight’s event out of the way, then we can focus on Thursday. By tomorrow we will have several more model runs under our belt and we can be more comfortable with the forecast. Just understand that the idea of snow flakes somewhere in Alabama Thursday or Thursday night is back on the table to some degree.
FRIDAY AND THE WEEKEND: It looks like we can remove the mention of rain Friday, as the models have all of the precipitation out of here by daybreak Friday; the sky will clear Friday, and the weekend will be dry with highs mostly in the 50s and lows in the 30s.
NEXT WEEK AND INTO VOODOO LAND: The GFS continues to trend toward a milder pattern during the latter half of December; see the Weather Xtreme video for details. Doesn’t look good for a White Christmas for now, but that is still way out there in voodoo land.
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I will have the next Weather Xtreme video posted here by 3:30 or so this afternoon… stay tuned!
