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ANOTHER WARM ONE: Once again today, temperatures are hovering around the 80 degree mark across Alabama at mid-afternoon with little in the way of rain on radar. Birmingham soared to 82 degrees at 2:00 p.m.
TO THE WEST: The upper low over Texas is weakening and slowly moving in our direction. We still expect an increase in the opportunity of showers and thunderstorms by tomorrow afternoon and tomorrow night as the wave moves through, but models continue to hint at a convective mass along the Gulf coast, which could disrupt the good flow of low level moisture into Alabama and reduce the rain amounts over the northern half of the state. Still, both the NAM and the GFS are pretty aggressive with the rain potential statewide tomorrow and tomorrow night; the NAM is printing 1.64″ for Birmingham, while the GFS shows 0.93″. I am not convinced we get that much, but lets keep our fingers crossed since our rainfall deficit for the year is now over six inches.
We do not expect any severe weather here due to weak upper air support and unfavorable wind fields. The rain will taper off early Friday as the wave moves on to the east. Much cooler air will roll in here on Friday; it now appears that we will not reach 60 on Friday with a chilly north breeze.
THE WEEKEND: The 12Z runs continue to trend colder for the weekend; looks like a high in the upper 50s on Saturday, with low 60s on Sunday. Mornings will be pretty chilly with mid 30s likely both early Saturday and Sunday. And, the colder valleys across North Alabama will most likely have a light freeze on both mornings. No rain for the weekend as the air will be very dry.
NEXT WEEK AND BEYOND: No real change in our thinking for the final two weeks of March; we expect temperatures to be above normal and rainfall below normal with a mean trough over the Southwest U.S., and a mean ridge over the Southeast U.S. And, once again, there is no sign of any major severe weather threat for the rest of March here in Alabama. Nobody is complaining about that.
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I had a great time today at Oak Mountain Classical School and Valley Elementary School; the kids from Oak Mountain Classical will be on the air today at 5:00 (with the ABC 33/40 KIDCAM), and my pals from Valley will be on tomorrow at 5:00. Be sure and watch for them. Tomorrow I will be driving into deep West Alabama to speak to the students at Pickens County High School in Reform. But, before I leave I will have a new Weather Xtreme video ready by 7:00 a.m.!
