The Monday morning edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme video is available in the player below, and on iTunes:
The focus here will be on the major storm that will bring a pile of snow to the northern U.S. and a severe weather threat to the Deep South in the next 48 hours. And, the severe cold that follows…
TODAY: No problems today; we rise into the 60s today with a mix of sun and clouds. To the west, our storm will take shape in the form of a surface low around Lubbock, Texas. There is a slight risk of severe storms tonight (as defined by SPC) over much of East Texas, Louisiana, far southern Arkansas, and the southwest part of Mississippi.
TOMORROW: The surface low will deepen, and by midday it should be a little north of Memphis, with showers and storms increasing to the west. SPC has all of Alabama in a slight risk of severe storms tomorrow, and at this time it looks like the main band of storms will move through the state in the 2:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. time frame. This, of course, means that they will be coming through when the air will be most unstable; a different scenario from late last week when it looked like the event could come during the early morning hours.
Jason Simpson ran some BUFKIT numbers; the surface based CAPE for Birmingham is as high as 1152 j/kg late tomorrow, with the EHI (Energy Helicity Index) up to 1.31. Those numbers sure get your attention. Traditionally, however, early season systems bring the good dynamics with marginal thermodynamics; for sure there will be some risk of hail and strong winds, but a few isolated tornadoes cannot be ruled out.
BACK INTO THE DEEP FREEZE: Very frigid air will roll into Alabama in the wake of the storm on Wednesday. I can see an opportunity for a few snow flurries, especially over Northeast Alabama, from midnight tomorrow night through about 8:00 a.m. Wednesday, but no accumulating snow. The big story is the cold. We won’t get out of the 30s on Wednesday, and on Thursday we will really struggle to get above the freezing mark. The GFS numbers remain laughable… even the 50s/30s guys are seeing the light on temperatures later this week. Looks like the coldest morning will come early Friday with lows between 10 and 18 degrees likely for the northern half of the state; some of the colder valley spots might even see single digit lows.
WEEKEND CLIPPER: An Alberta clipper type system will bring the chance of some light snow to Alabama Saturday evening or Saturday night. Historically these systems don’t bring very much moisture; so for now we don’t expect any travel issues related to the snow threat. However, you can’t totally ignore the Canadian, which develops a robust storm in the Gulf in response to the upper energy diving down the backside of the upper trough, and prints a few inches of snow over North Alabama. For now, that model is an outlier.
LONG RANGE: I sure don’t put must faith on our old pal, the GFS (at least the 06Z run), as it shifts the Polar jet up toward the Canadian border and brings a series of southern stream systems through here. But, we are late in the season and at some point the cold air machine will have to shut down for spring. But remember, some of our biggest snow events here have come in March and even the first week of April. We can have cold and unsettled weather deep into the year.
WEATHER PARTY: See the latest weather related news over on our sister site, weatherparty.com. Always some interesting reading over there.
STORM ALERT 2007: We are coming to Jasper this week; we will be at the CHS building in downtown Jasper at 7:00. Read more about the show, and get the remaining schedule here.
I will be dropping by the Birmingham Veterans Administration Hospital a little later this morning to visit with some of the patients there; I will be back in the office by early afternoon and should have the afternoon discussion and Weather Xtreme video ready by 3:30 p.m. Enjoy the day… even Mondays can be good ones!
