The Wednesday edition of the Weather Xtreme video is available in the player below, and also on iTunes:
NOTE: We will be on the holiday mode through the weekend and there will be only one Weather Xtreme video daily. We get back to the “two a days” Monday of next week.
The short term weather is a no-brainer. Sunny days, clear nights with a slow warming trend through the weekend. Really hard to beat this kind of weather here in late November. The big bag of wind and rain on the Atlantic coast won’t bother us, but that thing is not all that far away if you are headed east today. As I write this Virginia Beach is reporting a soaking rain, with a northeast wind averaging 32 mph, gusting to 51 mph. Pretty nasty stuff; that storm will move slowly northward during the next few days. The rain will reach Washington and Baltimore later today or tonight. Otherwise, much of the nation is dry today.
The latest MOS products have us up in the low 70s on Friday and Saturday. Bring it on… that will feel good after the cold weather we have experienced lately.
NEXT WEEK: I sure get the idea there will be some fingernail biting in the weather office next week. Plenty of model madness… but here is what the GFS is trying to tell us now:
A cold front brings a chance of showers and storms to Alabama on Wednesday (a week from today). I don’t see much of a severe weather threat with that right now. The front moves into the northern Gulf Wednesday night as colder air slips into the northern half of the state.
Energy diving down into the upper trough will help to spin up a surface low on the front in the northern Gulf of Mexico on Thursday (November 30), and will bring rain to Alabama Thursday afternoon and Thursday night. If this were January, I would be really concerned about a problem with ice due to the shallow cold air in place; maybe even some snow if the cold air was deep enough. But, this is not January, this is late November. No doubt the safest thing to forecast now is a cold rain, but the 06Z GFS does bring critical thickness values almost down to I-20 Thursday night. Makes you go HMMMMM.
The storm moves northeast, just off the Atlantic coast, on Friday December 1 and the precipitation winds down in Alabama as even colder air dives into the state. The GFS suggests we stay in the 30s much of the day Friday (12/1); much like Monday of this week.
HOLD YOUR HORSES: Understand, the scenario above is not a forecast; I am just laying out the GFS look. The European (ECMWF) says the warm ridge over the Gulf wins the battle, and on Friday 12/1 it shows the main westerlies near the Canadian border and NO cold air or big Gulf storm around here. A radical difference from the good ole American model.
So, what do I think? Based on the pattern and the history of the season, I think you have to roll with the GFS solution. The ECMWF has not been performing all that well so far this cold weather season, and the GFS has been right on the money with the major systems so far. So, strap in and get ready for a week of fun and games.
WEATHER PARTY: Thanks to everyone who is participating in our sister site; lots of great reading over there and some very interesting weather stories. If you register you can submit links to weather stories, and vote on them to determine what shows up on the front page.
WEATHER BRAINS: We got this week’s episode recorded last night, and David Black has a fascinating interview with the Meteorologist In Charge of the Wilmington, NC NWS office; the discussion is the warning process during their tragic tornado last week. As usual, the media was reporting “no warning” for that twister, which simply wasn’t true.
Be safe if you are traveling today… the next Weather Xtreme Video will be posted at some point tomorrow morning. I will probably write a brief discussion later today updating ideas on next week!
