Cold Weekend

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.

COLD AND DRY: Looks like we won’t make our forecast highs this afternoon. At 1:00, Birmingham was only at 41 degrees, while Huntsville was at 36. This is a very cold airmass over much of the nation, and the models don’t seem to understand the depth of the cold air.

The weekend will be cold and dry; morning lows well below freezing, with potential for teens across the colder valleys of North Alabama both tomorrow and Sunday morning. We will struggle to reach 50 tomorrow, and most likely won’t reach 50 Sunday.

NEXT WEEK: Still looking at a good rain event for Alabama Tuesday and Tuesday night, with potential for 1 to 2 inches of rain here. The QPF guidance is even more aggressive, hinting at over two inches of rain for North Alabama. There could be some thunderstorms involved with good upper air support, but severe weather doesn’t look likely due to the lack of instability.

The 12Z GFS continues the idea of no phasing of the northern and southern streams at mid-week, and no serious blast of Arctic air. So, we will need to revise our numbers upward for Wednesday and Thursday. Also, the 12Z run hints the southern trough could produce a surface low Thursday over South Georgia that might spread some moisture in here from the east. So, the idea of a beneficial rain event Tuesday and Tuesday night looks great now, but beyond that model madness makes for a rather low confidence forecast.

THE LAND OF VOODOO: Will the NAO try and go positive later this month, making for milder conditions here? That is the big question; seems that if it happens, it will be only be short term with so much cold air around. The 12Z GFS is showing a nice snow event for places like Monroe, Louisiana and Vicksburg, Mississippi in the December 20 time frame. That will most likely vanish on the next run, and confidence in the outlook for late December remains unclear.

TWITTER: Don’t forget, you can follow our news and weather updates from ABC 33/40 on Twitter here. And, my personal Twitter feed is here if you want to keep up with my adventures in life. Twitter is a short messaging service you can receive via the web, cell phone, or IM.

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 had a great time seeing the kids at Oak Mountain Elementary in the lunchroom today… seems like everyone is getting in the Christmas spirit these days. I will have my next Weather Xtreme video bright and early Monday morning at 7:00… Brian Peters will have the video updates here tomorrow and Sunday. Have a wonderful weekend!

Category: Uncategorized