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Today will certainly not be as pretty as yesterday was. I hope everyone who loves the weather was able to see some of the clouds in the sky yesterday. The cirrus was spectacular with lots of those flowing wisps sometimes called mares tails. There were lots of photo opportunities yesterday, but I didn’t have my camera with me to catch some of them – just gorgeous.
Today will be mostly cloudy but still mild for early December. We saw highs in the upper 60s yesterday with a few spots reaching 70 degrees. Clouds may temper those highs today just a tad but it will still be mild with afternoon highs in the upper 60s which is a good 6 to 8 degrees above the seasonal values.
Showers should move through Central Alabama beginning this afternoon. A cold front being dragged from a surface low moving through the Great Lakes and into New England will drag a cold front through Central Alabama tonight. The rain and showers should come through quickly, so don’t expect a lot of rain. Most of the rain will be east of the Birmingham area by rush hour Monday morning. Amounts of one quarter to a half inch are possible, but I think most spots will see rainfall amounts on the low side of that range.
With the front zipping along we should see clearing skies during the day Monday but it will really see cold. A brisk northwest wind together with the cold air advection will bring a raw day to the state. I expect temperatures to hold steady or fall after the cold front passes so highs will probably come early in the day.
Dry weather will prevail through much of the upcoming week as the Southeast remains under a northwesterly flow pattern. A weak disturbance moves by on Wednesday but I think the moisture will be too limited for more than just a some clouds. By late Friday and Saturday a new upper air disturbance shows some promise for another shot at a little bit of rain. The problem, however, is that this disturbance will also be moving quickly, so it does not appear to be a significant rain event.
The longer range progs maintain a fairly fast flow with lots of disturbances moving from west to east. It still seems likely that we’ll see another rain chance around December 7th and again around December 12th. Unfortunately, none of these appear to be really good rain events, but we’ll take all the small rain events we can get. It was interesting to note that the Gulf low I mentioned yesterday does not show up on the latest GFS model run – anyone surprised?
James Spann will be back at the controls tomorrow morning. I’ll be filling in for Ashley Brand this evening on the 5 and 10 pm newscasts. I hope that you have a great Sunday and a great week. God bless.
-Brian-
