11 am cold/snow update

**DANGEROUSLY COLD AIR TO CONTINUE…COULD GET WORSE LATE THIS WEEK**
**SNOW POSSIBLE THURSDAY**

This was our coldest morning of the outbreak so far, with lows in the teens as far south as Birmingham and Auburn (see JB’s post below). An upper-level disturbance is bringing some clouds and even a few snow flurries to Alabama today, but most of the snow being picked up on radar is not reaching the ground due to the dry atmosphere at low levels. The clouds are keeping temperatures from rising much. It was still in the lower to middle 20s as far south as Clanton at 10 am, and most locations north of I-20 may never get above freezing at all today or tomorrow.

Take a look at observed temperatures so far in 2010 at BHM airport, and GFS model temperatures through Sunday night.

It keeps getting a little bit colder every day. Cold air keeps coming in from the north, and the sun and the ground releasing heat are both warming it up some from the near 0 temperatures where the air is coming from (Minnesota, Wisconsin, and The Great Lakes, shown below). However, 4 inch soil temperatures have dropped 5-10 degrees since last Thursday, and are now in the upper 30s over most of central Alabama, so the ground will have less capacity to warm the cold air as it comes in for the rest of the week than it did initially.

After a brief warm up (into the upper 30s) ahead of the next cold front coming in Thursday night, temperatures drop even further, with lows possibly in the single digits and highs near 20 by next weekend. This is a long-term bitterly cold outbreak, probably the worst since December 1989. 1) Most dogs and cats around here are simply not up to this kind of cold, and need to be brought in if at all possible, especially at night. Close them off in a bathroom or something if you have to, but they’ll be happier. Even during the day, make sure dog house doors face south or east, throw an extra blanket in, try to cover the door with a curtain or piece of fabric (make sure they’ll go in and out first!), and make sure they have unfrozen water to drink. 2) Pipes will be under a lot of stress. Just about any pipe in a crawl space, under a mobile home, or one that leads to an outside faucet, if there is water in it, will freeze if unprotected. 3) Check on people! Make sure all elderly, shut-ins, disabled people, even healthy friends and family, have adequate heat. 4) When you go outside, wear a hat, gloves, and layered clothing. 5) Many people resort to space heaters in these situations. Please use caution with these…keep them away from curtains, furniture, cords, or other flammable materials, and if the wires look worn out, get a new one. Many house fires happen in cold outbreaks due to space heaters.

It now looks very likely we will get at least some snow (1″+) in central Alabama Thursday or Thursday night as the next cold front comes in. The models still vary quite a bit on amounts based on how much Gulf of Mexico moisture can get involved. We don’t know right now. With such cold air, it makes it a little harder for Gulf moisture to get in here. If significant snow falls, it won’t go away the next day, since temperatures will be so cold Friday and Saturday. We’ll know more about the location and amounts of snow tonight and tomorrow, as the cold front gets moving in the northern Rockies and the short range models get to analyze it thoroughly also.

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