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ON TO BUSINESS: Sure looks like lots of action in the weather office for the rest of December. Strap in and lets talk about it…
TODAY: The big trough that was parked over the Southwest U.S. for days, the one responsible for the major ice storm over the heartland of our nation, is weakening and lifting out today, passing north of Alabama. This is producing winter weather issues for the Northeast U.S., and will drag a cold through Alabama today with a few showers, but nothing heavy. Once again, we expect rain totals today to be generally under a quarter of an inch. Nothing to write home about. We will hover in the 60s all day with clouds holding tough.
TONIGHT/TOMORROW: Colder air drops into Alabama; we will be in the mid 40s early tomorrow, and the high tomorrow afternoon should be in the upper 50s. The day tomorrow will be dry with a mix of sun and clouds. To the west, our new storm begins to take shape with snow developing over Oklahoma and parts of North Texas, where winter storm watches have already been posted. Looks like much of Oklahoma along and north of a line from Altus to Oklahoma City to Tulsa will have 2 to 5 inches of snow falling on top of the ice that is already covering that state. This has been an incredibly cold and harsh December for our friends out there; our sister station in Tulsa, KTUL-TV, reports no power and no water. They have been on generator power for over 36 hours and working under very difficult conditions.
THE WEEKEND: The models are in pretty good agreement with the surface low track running from near Shreveport to Nashville, and then on to Boston on Sunday. This will be a whopper of a snow storm in the general area from St. Louis into interior New England; some folks up in the Northeast U.S. will have over one foot of snow with near blizzard conditions on Sunday. This will be similar to our Blizzard of 1993 for those folks; one to remember.
Here in our state, we will have periods of rain and possibly some thunder Saturday afternoon and into Saturday night. Rain amounts of around one-half inch seem likely under the circumstances. Talk about some model madness… the NAM has a high of 46 for Birmingham on Saturday, while the GFS is exactly 20 degrees warmer with 66. There could be well defined warm front involved; it might be that Cullman has a high of 46 while Clanton has a high of 66, if the warm front is around I-20. Temperatures will be very tough to forecast Saturday because of this; for now we will take a middle of the road approach.
Then, Saturday night, and the surface low pulls away to the northeast and colder air rolls in, there remains a window for the rain to chance to light snow or snow flurries over North Alabama from around midnight Saturday night through 7:00 a.m. Sunday. The snow will simply melt as it hits the ground and no accumulation is expected. The best chance of light snow or flurries will be over the northeast part of the state across higher terrain, like Lookout Mountain.
Sunday will be a cold and blustery day with a high only in the low 40s and a brisk northwest wind. Looks like the coldest morning will be early Monday with mid 20s likely; some of the colder valleys across North Alabama could reach the upper teens.
LONG RANGE: The GFS continues to advertise a very good rain event one week from tomorrow, Friday December 21. Then, another rain day shows up on December 23, followed by a sharp change to colder air on Christmas Eve; Christmas Day looks dry and cool on the 00Z run. But, this is getting way out into voodoo land. I do think the weather will be very active during the last two weeks of December.
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I sure enjoyed my visit to Trinity Life Church last night… tonight I will be speaking at the annual Center Point Chamber of Commerce Christmas Banquet, and tomorrow night I will speak to the Hunter Street Baptist Church singles. Busy time of the year, you know… the next Weather Xtreme video will be posted here by 3:30 or so this afternoon!
