Meteorology is a fun science. Some days have it all. Not that dropping from the 60s to the 20s in one day wasn’t interesting on Tuesday. This morning, the southeastern U.S,. has a little of everything.
Ice: With rain moving into another cold, dry air mass overnight, there is some freezing rain and sleet across parts of western Kentucky, western Tennessee, and northern Mississippi (where a winter weather advisory is in effect). Muscle Shoals, AL has had some wintry precip also.
Snow: It is snowing this morning in northern Arkansas.
Thunderstorms: Thunder is being reported this hour at Little Rock, Arkansas, with a temperature of 36 degrees. There is also a line of thunderstorms in Texas.
Gravity waves: With the warm air overrunning cooler air, the air is very stable over north Alabama this morning, allowing small gravity waves to form. These are similar to the waves behind a boat…the stable atmosphere is disturbed (by wind shear or something) and waves go through the air. As the air goes up, it cools and raises the pressure, and also forms some rain aloft that can be seen on radar. When it goes back down, the rain stops, the air warms, and the pressure goes back down. Check out the radar over HSV this morning and the high-resolution pressure observations (every 5 seconds).
