Midday Nowcast: Clearing Sky Today with Colder Air on the Way; Drought Update

COOLER TODAY AND TOMORROW: A cooler, drier air mass has returned to Alabama today. We have clouds at the writing of this forecast, but we will see a clearing sky this afternoon. Tonight, the sky will be clear with lows in the mid 30s. Tomorrow, expect sunshine in full supply with highs in the low to upper 50s. These temperatures will be right at seasonal average for mid-December. Tomorrow night, a reinforcing shot of cold air moves into Alabama, just in time for the first official day of winter.

BIRMINGHAM ALMANAC: For December 19th, the average high for Birmingham is 56° and the average low is 38°. The record high is 75° set in 1984, while the record low is 11° set in 1963. We average 0.16” of precipitation on this date and the record value is 1.68” set in 1898.

ACROSS THE USA: Areas of moderate to heavy snow and gusty to high winds are expected across the Northern Plains, Upper Midwest and Great Lakes into Friday. Several inches of snow accumulation is expected. Heavy rain will bring an isolated flash flood threat to Puerto Rico and flash flooding along with mudslides to American Samoa today.

WINTER SOLSTICE: Winter officially arrives this weekend as the winter solstice occurs at 3:21AM CST Saturday, marking the start of Astronomical Winter. This is the day with the shortest amount of daylight hours and longest night of the year, and when the Sun is at its lowest daily maximum elevation in the sky. Saturday will be less than one second shorter than Friday, but still shorter. The amount of daylight will increase after Saturday, and will continue until the summer solstice in June 2025.

COLD WEEKEND WEATHER: The first weekend of winter will be feeling like winter as a much colder air settles in. Expect highs to drop into the 40s for the northern half of Alabama with lows 50s for South Alabama. Overnight lows fall into the 20s for most of Alabama. This air mass will be very dry, so precipitation is not in the forecast. Both Saturday and Sunday will feature abundant sunshine.

CHRISTMAS WEEK: Little change in the forecast for no for next week. We are forecasting a warming trend for the first half of next week and by Christmas Day, highs will be in the upper 50s to lower 60s across Alabama. As far as rain chances, the models continue to show the chance for some light rain on Christmas Day. Showers and possibly a few thunderstorms will likely continue Thursday and Friday, and highs remain in the 60s.

DROUGHT MONITOR: The latest drought monitor came out today, and recent rains have helped lessen the drought severity for much of the state, but we still need a lot more rain in the coming weeks to bring the drought to an end. Remember, drought takes time to develop and takes time to go away.

WORLD TEMPERATURE EXTREMES: Over the last 24 hours, the highest observation outside the U.S. was 112.3F at Learmonth, Australia. The lowest observation was -58.9F at Summit, Greenland.

CONTIGUOUS TEMPERATURE EXTREMES: Over the last 24 hours, the highest observation was 91F at Pala, CA. The lowest observation was -17F at Forest Center, MN.

Tags: ANC, clearing, colder, featured

Category: Alabama's Weather, ALL POSTS, Social Media