Potentially Serious Winter Weather Ahead

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Before I start this forecast discussion, let me be clear on one extremely important fact. This discussion is NOT a knee jerk reaction to the forecast mess of January 28th. Along with all the other meteorologists forecasting the weather in Central Alabama, I became a little too confident in the model solutions and did not allow room for the uncertainty that always comes with winter weather in the Southeast US. So, stinging from the bust of 10 days ago and having that experience, I am going to try to be more careful in expressing the knowns and unknowns about the developing weather situation.

This is potentially developing into a very serious winter weather threat for Central Alabama. The real issue is that some of the highest population areas are on the southern edge, often the most uncertain side, of this winter storm. If you want to be completely safe, plan for the worst in the period of time from late Monday afternoon, about 3 to 6 pm, through noon on Tuesday, longer if icing becomes really serious. And by the worst, I mean icing that will paralyze transportation and produce power outages that the power company staff will be hard pressed to fix in a hurry. I’m confident that my friends at Alabama Power are not enjoying the warm weather today as that whole company gears up their readiness for what Mother Nature is preparing for us. Today will be a nice day, tomorrow will be cooler and cloudy with conditions deteriorating in the afternoon and evening hours, so today and the first half of tomorrow will be the time for everyone to think about your readiness to withstand a couple of days of crippling conditions that won’t strand you on the highway but that could strand you at home without heat. Forget the bread and milk, do you have a manual can opener, do you have food that does not require cooking, do you have safe alternative heat sources, do you have enough water to sustain yourself and family for several days? These are all questions each person should and must answer if you are to be ready for an ice storm.

You’ve probably heard that the computer model guidance is coming into better agreement, and it is. But, there’s always one of those, there are still differences in the various models that could go one way or the other. Like how thick will the cold air be? Will there be a warm layer aloft and how thick will it be? How cold will it get in the lower 10,000 feet, cold enough for ice or perhaps warm enough to be just rain. Please take time to see the video for all of the details.

We’re looking at a fairly nice day today with clouds and some sunshine, but tonight the clouds will increase and we probably won’t see much sunshine until Thursday. A cold front will move through Alabama Monday and stall out across South Alabama. Small waves along that front will produce an overrunning situation with warm air riding over the cold air near the ground. The question becomes just how far south the cold air will reach. And right now, it looks like the cold air should reach to or perhaps just south of Birmingham, so the I-20 corridor becomes the focus for serious icing while the Tennessee Valley is likely to see just snow. But this is not a line we can be completely certain about. If the cold air intrusion is slightly better than forecast that icing could reach further south toward Clanton and Prattville. Or, should the cold air intrusion be a bit weaker, then icing could be further north in the vicinity of Cullman while Birmingham sees just rain. The lines on these maps are NOT drawn in stone, they are fluid, and we must respond to and be aware of this uncertainty in making our plans in order to be safe. Again, see the video for lot of charts explaining this.

After the late Monday/Tuesday event, Wednesday is expected to be fairly cold with highs in the 40s with clouds and precipitation sticking around. We finally dry out on Thursday with highs warming into the 50s with lows in the 30s. Next shot of rain comes late next weekend.

Oh, and the view into voodoo country shows that the trend from yesterday still appears on the board. We see a nice warmup around the 19th of February with the building of a substantial ridge over the eastern US, but we dip back to colder weather again by the 24th.

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I’ve said quite enough about the weather – think I’m going to go back to bed!! But I am excited to be heading to Calera on Thursday for the second stop in the Storm Alert Tour. Big uncertainty about that program will be whether or not Colonel Sanders shows up or perhaps Santa Claus! Doors open at Calera High School at 5 pm with a great giveaway to the first 300 people. Plus you can register for door prizes to be given at the end of the program. Hope to see you there. I hope James Spann will be back with the next edition of the Weather Xtreme Video, but if I were him, I might hope a jet for Jamaica or Bermuda or some other tropical paradise. Enjoy the nice weather today and please get ready for whatever happens Monday night and Tuesday. Godspeed.

-Brian-

Category: Alabama's Weather