Weekend Wet-Down Ahead

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TODAY/TOMORROW: Birmingham has been sitting around 25 degrees on the hourly ob for several hours; most likely we did go below 25 at some point this morning, making today the 13th consecutive day with a minimum of below 25 degrees. This has never happened before here, with records going back to the mid 1880s. But, our daytime temperatures will continue to warm. We reach the mid 50s today, and we should be close to 60 degrees tomorrow for the warmest two day period so far in 2010. The sky will be partly sunny both days as high clouds streak overhead, but we stay dry.

WEEKEND RAIN: A wet weather system will move inland over the weekend, and bring rain to all of Alabama. The surface low will move from near Pensacola to Phenix City by Saturday night, and rain will become widespread around here Saturday afternoon and Saturday night. We are now projecting 1 to 2 inches of rain for the I-20 corridor, with potential for 3 inches down south (below Montgomery). Just a good, soaking, general rain with no risk of severe weather, and probably no thunder.

The rain will taper off early Sunday as the low pulls away from Alabama, but the clouds will probably linger all day Sunday. Temperatures will be a little cooler with a high in the upper 40s, but we won’t have to deal with Arctic air this time.

NEXT WEEK AND BEYOND: The next rain producer shows up Thursday of next week; that one looks like another good rain producer, and with a little surface based instability we might have a thunderstorm or two involved. Then, watch the Weather Xtreme video and you will see the 12Z GFS brings a shot of very cold air down here right as the month is ending; makes sense with the AO going strongly negative again. As we have been saying, winter is far from over. Too early to determine just how severe or long lasting that cold snap will be. Stay tuned.

LIVE CHAT: We are now offering a real time chat here on the blog… open blog comments will stay in place, of course, but this will allow a more immediate method of communication for weather geeks. We do have moderators posted over there, so be sure and play nice. Members of our weather team will be there from time to time to answer questions; we will post those times we are available here on the blog.

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 will be out at Irondale Middle School this morning doing a weather program, the next Weather Xtreme video will be posted by 3:30 or so this afternoon. Enjoy the day!

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