Cold Losing Its Grip

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Another chilly morning for Central Alabama with temperatures flirting with the 20-degree mark, so definitely some “brrrrrr” in your morning out there. The 21 low at my house is the second coldest morning of 2012. But take heart, there is a change underway that will be warming things up nicely with highs today expected to reach the lower 50s – about where we expect to be in mid-January.

A weak surface low will move by to our north today helping to increase the pressure gradient a bit which will produce some breezy conditions. But thanks to a lack of moisture, it appears that there will be little impact on our weather outside of the wind.

Surface high settles in on Sunday while the upper ridge becomes stronger allowing a nice warm up for Sunday with highs in the mid 50s. A cold front approaches the area on Monday with the precipitation threat remaining just to our northwest. But the front moves into Alabama on Tuesday bringing us a shot of wet weather with some potential for isolated thunderstorms, but nothing is expected to be severe. The GFS and the ECMWF are in good agreement with the ECMWF just a smudge slower than the GFS on the frontal movement. But both models swing the front through fairly quickly paving the way for a colder but dry Wednesday. This round of cold weather does not appear to be as intense as the one we are just coming out of. But I do expect to see lows back into the 20s and highs in the 40s at least on Wednesday.

QPF guidance suggests rainfall amounts around a half inch which seems reasonable.

We stay dry through the end of the week as the trough moves off the East Coast and the upper air pattern flattens over the country. A number of minor short waves can be identified, but one of those intensifies enough to produce a potential for some rain on Saturday, a week from today. I’m a little concerned that this short wave may also be moisture starved, so I’m not introducing showers into the forecast just yet. And right now the potential is somewhat small.

Looking further into the future, the GFS and the ECMWF continue to present a fairly active pattern. The GFS becomes aggressive again with the southwesterly trough, more aggressive than the ECMWF. If the GFS has the right idea, we will remain mild next week but somewhat wet with at least two good shots at rain events around the 23rd and the 26th.

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I hope you have a great day today no matter what your plans might be. I expect to post the next Weather Xtreme Video by 8 am or so on Sunday morning. Godspeed.

-Brian-

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Category: Alabama's Weather