An all new edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme video is available in the player below. You can subscribe to the Weather Xtreme video on iTunes by clicking here.
RIGHT NOW: Temperatures are below freezing over much of Alabama; not quite as cold as forecast due to mid level clouds that are streaming over the state. One of the coldest observations I have seen comes from our Skywatcher in the community of Scrougeout (no, we don’t make these up), northeast of Gasdsden… Vic Bell reports 21 degrees. We stay cold and dry today with a high in the mid 40s.
ICING POTENTIAL TOMORROW MORNING: I still have concern that we will have bridge icing here tomorrow morning. A cold rain will begin, and with dewpoints initially in the low 20s, there most likely will be some sleet mixed with the rain, and surface temperatures will drop down to around 30 degrees due to evaporative cooling. Ice should form for a brief time on exposed surfaces, and while the roads will simply be wet, bridges and overpasses could be icy for a while. If you need to drive somewhere tomorrow morning, I would delay it until later in the day until we get above freezing. If you do have to drive, let’s be very careful out there.
Periods of rain will continue tomorrow afternoon through tomorrow night, then tapering off on Sunday. It will be a cold rain tomorrow, but Sunday will be warmer with temperatures in the 50s. The NAM is printing 1.08″ of rain over the weekend, while the GFS is a little drier with 0.68″. We figure rain totals will be somewhere between those two values for most places.
NEXT WEEK: Monday will be much warmer. The GFS shows a high of 72, and if that can be reached, we will achieve some decent surface based instability. We will mention a chance of scattered showers in the mild and moist air Monday, followed by a good round of showers and thunderstorms on Tuesday. Most likely we will need to visit the idea of a few severe thunderstorms around here on Tuesday; we will fine tune that forecast over the weekend. The 06Z GFS hints the best chance of stronger storms could actually come late Monday night into Tuesday morning. Colder and drier air follows the rain for the latter half of the week.
DREAMING OF A YOU KNOW WHAT? The pattern continues to look cold and unsettled for the rest of December. Only a fool would forecast a White Christmas, since we have never had one in the classic sense, but at least all of the players are on the field this year. Watch the Weather Xtreme video to see how the 06Z GFS handles things out there in Santa land.
WEATHER BRAINS: Don’t forget you can listen to our weekly 30 minute netcast anytime on the web, or on iTunes. This is the show all about weather featuring many familiar voices, including our meteorologists here at ABC 33/40. You can even listen here on the blog; look for the player on the top left.
I will be doing a weather program this morning at Helena Middle School; then later today I will be live in Columbiana for their Christmas Tree lightning. I should be able to crank out another Weather Xtreme video this afternoon so we can look closely at the icing possibilities for tomorrow morning. Have a great day!
