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Now this looks more like your classic El Nino pattern. Tornado warnings and flooding across California, ice up north, and lots of rain and storms for Alabama. We have two significant systems in the days ahead; let’s take them one at a time.
STORM NUMBER ONE: Let me encourage you to watch the Weather Xtreme video since this one will be rather complex with lots of possibilities during the next 36 hours. During the day today, rain will break out across the state; most guidance suggests the most widespread rain this afternoon will be along and north of I-20, or over the northern third of Alabama. The most widespread rain and storms will come tonight, when the rain could be heavy at times. The NAM is printing 2.63″ of rain for Birmingham through tomorrow night, with the GFS at 2.21″. The good news is that soil is not saturated and should be able to handle this without any serious flooding issues. We do note the NWS in Jackson has issued a flash flood watch for the central counties of Mississippi.
SPC maintains a slight risk (their standard risk) of severe weather for West Alabama tonight, generally west of a line from Muscle Shoals to Birmingham to Montgomery to Anadalusia. There is very little surface based instability around here tonight, so the threat looks rather marginal, but as we all know, when it comes to thunderstorms we expect the unexpected. So we will be watching the radar closely.
TOMORROW: The big batch of rain and storms (MCS) will end tomorrow morning, and the sun could pop out during the midday hours, which could push the surface based CAPE values over 1,500 j/kg, along with surface temperatures toward the 70 degree mark. Then, tomorrow afternoon one more round of storms is possible, and those could be strong to severe. SPC has a slight risk of severe storms in place tomorrow for about the northern half of Alabama. We will need to watch those closely; the best helicity is east of the state, so hail and strong winds will be the main threat. But, an isolated tornado cannot be ruled out. The RPM suggests these storms will end early tomorrow evening.
Friday and Saturday will be dry and mild with highs in the 60s. South winds will increase Saturday ahead of the next storm system, along with an increase in clouds.
STORM NUMBER TWO: The latest GFS runs have trended a little faster with this one; the 06Z run hints the best chance of rain and storms will come from about midnight Saturday night through 12:00 noon Sunday. SPC has much of Alabama under a severe weather risk, and the threat of heavy rain will exist as well. We will be much more specific on this second storm system after our mid-week storm is gone. Rain potential late Saturday night and Sunday will be in the 1 to 2 inch range.
NEXT WEEK: We turn colder Monday in the wake of the departing storm; highs will drop in the 40s reminding us this is still winter. Looks like we will head for the 20s by daybreak Tuesday. The next chance of rain will be at the end of next week.
THE LAND OF VOODOO: We still believe Arctic air will revisit the continental U.S. in February, but still too early to be specific about how much reaches the Deep South, or how long the cold will last. February could indeed make us shiver, with every paper we deliver (anyone remember that song?).
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