The 00z run of the GFS looks less promising for snow chances across Central and North Alabama Thursday night. This is on the heels of the 18 run, which actually looked like the chances were better.
The GFS has been consistently predicting a disturbance swinging across Alabama Thursday night and Firday morning. The 18z depicted a much stronger disturbance. Now on the 00 run, it is faster and weaker, leading to only a brief changeover to snow Thursday night.
We are seeing several possibilities in the different model runs. We will have to get closer to the event to sort things out. For now, we will call for a changeover from rain to snow Thursday night. There still is a chance we could see some accumulations across parts of the area late New Year’s Eve.
It will be very cold as we head into the weekend. Temperatures on Saturday morning will be in the lower 20s or colder with readings struggling to get out of the 20s during the day. Saturday night will be very cold, with lows in the teens. Sunday won’t be much better than Sunday, with highs in the upper 30s on average.
Before all this gets started, there will be rain on Wednesday. It will be a cold rain, wit highs in the 40s. The precipitation could start as sleet or a wintry mix late Tuesday night. We don’t anticipate any problems with icing now, since the precipitation will be light at the onset and temperatures are expected to go above freezing by mid-morning.
Needless to say, there will be some interesting forecasts between now and the New Year. Stay tuned.
