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NO DULL MOMENTS: Wow… I have already gotten hate mail, and the trolls are out. How things change in 12 hours, even though we have no snow in our ongoing formal forecast just yet. Lets break the weekend system down into the two main phases…
HEAVY RAIN/SEVERE WEATHER: SPC maintains a slight risk of severe weather for much of Alabama, with the 30 percent probability running roughly from Anniston to Monroe, LA. I am still not overly convinced this will be a major threat; surface based instability is seriously lacking, and the degree of low level helicity has really decreased on the 12Z runs. But, with a low level boundary around here, there could be a zone with backed winds and potential for rotating updrafts. We will keep an eye on things; if we have severe weather it seems the main window would be from about 3:00 p.m. until 12:00 midnight tomorrow. A few tornadoes could be involved.
The heavy rain threat is very real with a stalled boundary around here. The 12Z NAM is now printing 3.60″ for Birmingham; with numbers like that you have to be a little concerned about some flooding even if the weather has been dry recently. Most likely, a band of heavier rain will set up along and just north of the old surface boundary, and it looks like that could very very close to I-20. People in flood prone areas need to be aware of this threat.
The rain will diminish by Saturday afternoon as the surface wave moves on to the east.
SNOW? An intense, cold core upper low will move right over us Saturday night. The 500 mb temperature drops to -20 (C) with this feature, and the dynamic cooling associated with the vort max could mean snow for Alabama. As I wrote late this morning, let me stress here that there is very little skill in forecasting snow amounts under a cold core upper low. Often where you think there is a potential maximum, you get nothing. And, other places are slammed with more snow that you might imagine. With this lack of skill at these kind of situations, there is no way we can make a call on the snow potential at this time. We will just mention a chance of snow Saturday night, ending early Sunday morning. We will be more specific later. Just don’t get too excited at this phase of the game.
Watch the Weather Xtreme video for all of the details and graphics associated with this discussion.
NEXT WEEK: Dry is the word for much of next week with a day to day warming trend.
STORM ALERT 2009: About to hop aboard AirLink 33/40 for the quick trip up to Cullman… our show begins tonight at the Cullman Civic Center at 7:00. Last chance to see our annual severe weather awareness show… we hope to see you there!
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I had a great time today at South Shades Crest and Trace Crossings Elementary schools in Hoover… look for the next Weather Xtreme video here by 7:00 a.m. tomorrow!
