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OCCASIONAL LIGHT RAIN: Clouds and periods of light rain headline the forecast for our state today… still looks like the heaviest rain will be over the southern half of the state, with communities near the Gulf Coast could see up to 1 inch. Up this way, amounts will be generally 1/4 to 1/2 inch… the NAM is printing 0.48″, while the GFS is a little drier, and probably closer to the truth with 0.30″.
TOMORROW/FRIDAY: Tomorrow will be a day with improving weather; morning clouds will give way to afternoon sunshine. There will be a cool north breeze, and the high should be in the upper 40s. Friday will feature a good supply of sunshine with a high in the 47 to 50 degree range.
WINTER FUN AND GAMES SUNDAY? Saturday will be a pretty decent January day, with ample sunshine and a high around 50. But, clouds roll in Saturday night ahead of the next short wave, and Sunday’s forecast is up for debate. As always, be sure and watch the Weather Xtreme video for all the cool graphics that go along with this discussion.
The GFS and the ECMWF are actually in decent agreement in that a surface low will form in the Gulf of Mexico, spreading rain up into Alabama on Sunday. The debate involves the potential for snow over the northern counties. The 06Z operational GFS hints that Sunday could feature light snow for the Tennessee Valley of extreme North Alabama, while the ECMWF is a little warmer, with the snow mostly in Tennessee. Both models are showing just rain for Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Anniston, and points south.
As the surface low moves northeast, there is certainly some chance the rain could change to snow before ending over the northern third of the state Sunday night, but for now we won’t really hit this hard in the forecast until we can see better clarity. For now, we will go with just rain for this part of the state Sunday, and make adjustments as needed in coming days.
NEXT WEEK: The GFS now shows Monday as a dry day, holding off the next short wave until Tuesday, when it tries to squeeze out some snow for the northern counties of the state as the harshly cold air we have been discussing drops into the Deep South. The ECMWF is dry on Tuesday, so again, this is a low confidence forecast situation. The one thing we are very confident in is that our weather will be very cold over the middle and latter part of next week as the big 1065 mb high drops south out of the Yukon. Models will have a very hard time handling this kind of anomalous pattern, and won’t be of much help at this stage of the game.
Everybody needs to prepare for some very cold weather in the January 12-20 time frame, and usually when it turns this cold, we wind up with some winter weather mischief along the way. Snow or ice, something. Time will tell if it happens this year; we have no skill in being specific, needless to say, at this stage of the game. Stay tuned.
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