The Tuesday afternoon edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme video is available in the player below, and on iTunes:
Anyone remember “Hot Fun In The Summertime” by Sly and the Family Stone? We need a cold weather version. The pattern looks very cold for much of the nation… and there is absolutely no change in thinking for the next 7 to 10 days. You know the lines… very cold for most of the U.S. east of the Rockies, and occasional winter storm threats on the southern periphery of the Arctic air across the southern U.S. That is easy… the hard part is in the details. We will all struggle with that, and you need to expect the unexpected. Lets take a look…
MORE COLD AIR TONIGHT: Check out the observations up in the cold air that is about to move into Alabama. Kansas City is at 16; St. Louis reports 18. O’Hare Airport in Chicago has 14 with snow flurries, and International Falls, Minnesota is at one degree. Bullwinkle must be shivering.
Another hard freeze is ahead for Alabama tonight, we will be close to 20 degrees by daybreak tomorrow. Tomorrow will be cold and dry with a high in the low 40s.
STORM THREAT NUMBER ONE: We are still looking at a very significant storm that will bring a variety of precipitation across the southern U.S. late tomorrow night (after midnight) into Thursday. The precipitation will begin as snow over much of Tennessee, with freezing rain and sleet across the northern third of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. Here in Alabama, we still believe the greatest chance of freezing rain and icy travel will be along and north of U.S. 278, and especially east of I-65 where surface temperatures will be a little colder. Sometimes the low level cold air is hard to modify across the high terrain of Northeast Alabama. The greatest chance of bridge icing will come from about 2:00 a.m. until 9:00 a.m. in these areas, so it won’t be a very long term event, but icy travel is a very real possibility.
Along the I-20 corridor, it will be a close call, but it sure looks like the Birmingham metro will be somewhere around 33 or 34 at 6:00 a.m. Thursday. The “cold air damming”, or “wedge” effect could mean colder surface temperatures to the east, and some bridge icing is more likely into deep East Alabama, and Georgia.
Everyone around here needs to get up extra early Thursday morning to check on road conditions, especially north of Birmingham, and north of U.S. 278.
During the day Thursday warm air advection takes over and we will warm into the upper 30s, and possibly the low 40s. A cold, rainy day.
FRIDAY/SATURDAY: The next shot of cold air rolls in here Friday night into Saturday. GFS MOS numbers are coming down, but they are still too warm in my opinion. We will hard a hard time getting out of the low to mid 30s on Saturday with an icy north wind. There might be a few flurries on these days, but no big deal.
STORM THREAT NUMBER TWO: The GFS and the Canadian have shunted the Sunday storm to the south on the 12Z runs, not impacting North Alabama. I didn’t trust the snow solution from the 00Z runs, and I don’t trust this solution either. I think the southern stream will spin up a storm in the Gulf late in the weekend, but there is no way to resolve where this thing winds up. We really need to get storm number one on by us before we focus on storm number two over the weekend. The idea of a Sunday winter storm is still on the table, but there is simply no way of knowing who, where, and how much right now.
YET ANOTHER COLD AIR SURGE: Even more cold air rolls in here Monday; much like Saturday we will have a hard time getting above the freezing mark on Monday.
STORM THREAT NUMBER THREE: And, the third threat shows up around the middle of next week with the potential for more wintry weather across the Deep South. Yep, we have to get through storms number one and two before we can even think about number three. But, the idea is on the table.
LONG RANGE: The weather still looks cold through mid-month, with a mean long wave upper trough over the eastern U.S. Temperatures should remain below normal… if you are looking for a sunny, warm day you will need to try some island in the Caribbean.
STORM ALERT 2007: We open our annual weather tour across Alabama Thursday night in Tuscaloosa at Shelton State… the show begins at 7:00 and we sure hope to see you there. See the entire tour schedule and the details on the show here.
WEATHER PARTY: See the latest weather related news on our sister site, WeatherParty.com. You can register and submit links and vote on them.
COMMENT MODERATION: Again I apologize to long term members of our “blog family” for having to moderate all comments; you would not believe the stuff we had to delete last night. A small group of people can really foul up a good thing. I don’t mind the negative comments; in fact we welcome them. We just won’t allow profanity, personal attacks, racist comments, or “hate speech” . We will probably go to a registration system soon so comments will be posted immediately.
I will have the next Weather Xtreme video posted by 7:00 a.m. tomorrow… enjoy your evening and STAY WARM.
