For The Snow Lovers

In the cold air advection pattern over Alabama earlier today, we had a few snow flurries across North Alabama. They didn’t amount to anything, and there was no impact. And, most places didn’t see a single flake. But, it brings out many questions from those looking for something more.

I get so many messages from people asking things like… “I see on my Facebook feed that “they” are forecasting a big winter storm for Alabama in two weeks; what do you think?”. I wrote this essay last week on the “social media-rologist dilemma”… which describes the problem.

The truth is that just about every day in winter, you can poke around and find a deterministic global computer model run that depicts a big southern snow storm in 15 days or so. And, of course, most of that is pure “voodoo” that never happens. Much like the tropical storms and hurricanes that show up in the medium range with global models in summer.

So, what about winter weather potential for Alabama for the rest of January?

The latest (12Z) global model run today by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, the ECMWF, which tends to have better accuracy in the medium range, suggests no measurable snow for Alabama through early next week.

But, the same model (EPS ensemble) suggests the pattern will remain relatively cold through the rest of the month across the Deep South.

During an El Nino winter, a southern storm stream usually remains fairly active, and we will have to watch for waves undercutting cold air; my concern I wrote about six months ago, and my concern even today, still involves freezing rain and ice as opposed to snow since cold air intrusions in this situation tend to be pretty shallow. And, we are certainly overdue for an ice storm.

During any winter in Alabama we almost have one or two decent “winter storm” threats, and I am sure we will have them this season. When? I have no idea. But, a good chance it won’t happen in the next seven days. We will just have to wait and see.

You won’t see 2/3/4 week snow forecasts here since there is no skill set in identifying specific forecast details beyond a week. In the words of Jason Samenow at the Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang, “If it’s beyond a week, it reeks.” With many winter storm situations, we struggle to get it right 24 hours in advance. As soon as there is solid evidence of winter weather mischief (not three snow flakes), we will write about it.

Tags: ANC, winter

Category: Alabama's Weather