The Thursday morning edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme Video is available in the player below, and on iTunes:
I am a big cold weather fan, and during the long hot summer I long for the days of fall and winter. But, I must admit I am just about ready for the warmer days of spring. They will be here sooner than later, but this cold airmass will stay in place through the weekend over a large percentage of the nation.
TODAY/TOMORROW: There will be a few cloudy periods today thanks to a short wave passing through, but the air is very dry and significant precipitation is unlikely. I guess a few snow flurries could form, but we have not mentioned them in the forecast. If we are lucky we might see 40 today, but for the most part we will stay in the 20s early this morning and the 30s this afternoon. The wind won’t be quite a bad as yesterday, but it won’t be calm either.
Looks like the wind will stay up tonight, so temperatures will not “bottom out”. But, we will have a hard freeze anyway; we will forecast a low of 19 degrees by daybreak tomorrow. The NAM is forecasting a high of 37 here tomorrow, which looks pretty good to me. We have to remember the air coming in here is flowing over a vast snow pack over much of the continent, which means it won’t have much time to modify.
WEEKEND CLIPPER: Our “Alberta Clipper” system will roll through here over the weekend, and it should bring a few periods of light snow to North Alabama. As we have mentioned here all week, these things are usually starved for moisture and rarely produce a big snow down here. But, they can make the ground white and can bring a “sneak attack” of wintry weather. I don’t see much reason to change our thinking; the best chance of any accumulation will be along and north of U.S. 278, or north of a line from Hamilton to Cullman to Gadsden. And, even there we are only talking an inch or so on the high end. A dusting is possible down to I-20, including the Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, and Anniston areas. The best chance of light snow, or snow flurries with the Clipper will come late Saturday afternoon through Saturday night and into early Sunday morning.
Models are in much better agreement, and now the Canadian and the JMA look more like the GFS; see the video for the graphics. The Canadian remains the wettest model, with the NAM being the driest.
NEXT WEEK: We begin to warm up next week, and the 06Z run of the GFS brings a strong mid-week short wave in here which has the potential to produce an outbreak of strong storms in the Tuesday night/Wednesday time frame. It remains to be seen if the air can become unstable enough for severe weather; we will deal with that one after our weekend Clipper.
LONGER RANGE: As the sun angle improves and the amount of daylight continues to expand, the weather, of course, will be warmer as we head into March. But, I think the weather will be very changeable in this pattern with occasional, temporary shots of cold air preceded by severe weather threats. Again, no dull days in the weather office anytime soon. Keep your seat belts on.
STORM ALERT 2007: We are coming to Jasper tonight… we will be at the CHS Building in downtown Jasper at 7:00; the doors open at 5:00. The first 500 people there will get a free Storm Alert 2007 t-shirt, and we will also give away 20 NOAA Weather Radio receivers at the show. You will see some amazing Alabama weather stories, put together by the legendary Bill Castle, and also you can meet our entire weather team. We hope to see you there…
WEATHER PARTY: Be sure and bookmark our sister site, weatherparty.com, for the latest weather related news. The site is full of very interesting stories, and you can submit them yourself if you register. While you are there be sure and vote on submitted stories; that determines what is published to the front page.
Due to the travel schedule today we will not be able to produce an afternoon edition of the Weather Xtreme video, but I will have a blog discussion on here by 3:30 this afternoon. And, I will try to get more viewer pictures posted today. I sure appreciate everyone taking the time to send them to us over the past few days… we can’t publish all of them, of course, but they are all extremely helpful to us. I will have the next Weather Xtreme video ready by 7:00 a.m. tomorrow. Hope to see you tonight in Jasper!
