Chill in the Air

An all new edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme video is available in the player on the right sidebar of the blog. You can subscribe to the Weather Xtreme video on iTunes by clicking here.

Interesting day yesterday with nearly no temperature change through the day. It will remain coolish today, too, but I do expect to see temperatures rise a little plus we should begin to see some sun by late morning and into the afternoon as the clouds begin to break up. A large surface high over the Great Lakes along with Sandy just off the Carolina coast are combining to create a long northerly fetch stretching from Canada southward across the Ohio and Tennessee River valleys into the Southeast. Hence our chillish day yesterday and the one today.

By late Monday and early Tuesday, Sandy will be making landfall along the DelMarVa peninsula with serious problems from Virginia to New England. High wind, storm surge, coastal flooding, heavy rain, flash flooding, and heavy snow for parts of the Appalachians will all come with Sandy. Sandy will be transitioning from tropical to extra tropical, but with such a large storm system, the effects will be widespread. I do expect to see serious disruptions to air travel beginning perhaps Monday afternoon and continuing through much of Tuesday. And it is likely to take several days for the travel problems to work themselves out due to the size of the storm system. Eight to 12 inches of rain can be expected with the storm along with up to 1 to 2 feet of snow in the higher elevations of the Appalachians from western North Carolina to South Central Pennsylvania.

Sandy eventually moves up into New England with much of the rain ending by this weekend.

For us, the impact of Sandy will be the advection of cold air into the Southeast. Look for widespread frost on Monday and Tuesday mornings plus some of those typically colder spots are likely to see a freeze especially Tuesday morning. After that, as the upper ridge slowly moves our way from the west we should see a gradual warmup with highs to around 70 to 72 by Friday.

The next shot at rain for us comes in voodoo country around November 5th/6th. And the GFS is now painting a big trough coming out of the Rockies around the 12th. This trough appears to be very strong, so it could produce a severe weather episode for the eastern half of the US. Too early to be specific on where and exactly when, but if the GFS is correct on the strength of the trough, it appears likely we’ll see a Fall severe weather episode.

And you can follow news and weather updates from ABC 33/40 on Twitter here. Stay in the know by following the whole gang – here’s the list…

Off to teach Sunday School this morning for the Virginia Tucker class at Helena United Methodist Church. Great group of people, but I really think they can get a better teacher than I am. Interesting topic discussing Philip and baptism of the eunuch. James Spann will be back with the next edition of the Weather Xtreme Video first thing Monday morning. I hope that you have a great day, and Godspeed.

-Brian-

Category: Alabama's Weather