Cold air on the way
A cold air mass is moving across the northern Plains early this morning, with temperatures in the 30s way down into Iowa and Nebraska. It’s that time of year! The cold air will be slow to move south, but the models agree that a cold front will move through Alabama on Friday. And, we could have our coldest air of the season so far this weekend.
After temperatures reach the lower 70s on Friday, north winds will kick in late in the day, with temperatures possibly in the 50s for High School football Friday night. Winds will make it feel even cooler. By Saturday, with north winds all day, highs will only be in the 60s, and we could very well drop into the lower 40s by Sunday morning, with 30s in the colder valleys.
JB Elliott and I are still maintaining our guess that this could be a cold, snowy winter. JB thinks we may see a 6″ snow in BHM, and I think this could be the year we make it to zero for the first time in a long time. We’ll see.
October 14th, 2008 at 4:09 am
I live North of Nashville by about 45 minutes, just South of the Kentucky line, we have been just as nearly snow-starved as you fine people in Birmingham.
Out of curiosity, I was wondering what you think the Winter may be like a little further North?
October 14th, 2008 at 4:57 am
Is the limb you are out on strong enough to support you both?
October 14th, 2008 at 6:24 am
Ok, check out the generator, water pipes, stockpile wood for the fireplace and make like a squirrel with the food. If I were crawling out on a limb, it would be JB’s.
October 14th, 2008 at 6:50 am
I’m in for a little colder winter for sure!
Here is to hoping it happens.
http://www.cookevilleweatherguy.com
October 14th, 2008 at 6:54 am
Well I hope we will see a colder winter this year we are so over dew for a cold winter it’s not funny.
October 14th, 2008 at 7:32 am
I don’t know about the colder weather. I’ll take a nice weekend event of 6″ snow, but that’s about it( mind you no power outages, etc with that). Not the best timing for a colder winter now that the power bill rates are about to go up, and the madness of everything shuting down, people making the run to the grocery stores etc. That I can live without.
October 14th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Hello Tim&J.B.,
I believe we will hit 0 degrees this year especially with a little snow on the ground. Even though we have received much more normal rain fall this year were still dry from the the last two years. This leads me to believe that this Winter the ground will have relatively low moisture levels which might keep the air drier as we go through the Winter. So with that said if the upper level winds or jet stream tend to move through are area more often I believe the dewpoint readings will be slightly lower and therefore allow for the air temperature to drop more. I think the lowest temperature report we had in Alabama last year was between 6-8 degrees. The lowest I recorded here in Moody last year was 12 degrees. As far as Birmingham is concerned I think it will take a lot of different factors for it to drop to 0 degrees. The reason being is over the fact that urban sprawl has caused the urban heat island’s to gain in size over the last 20 years. I mean how much concrete and asphalt have we added in the 20 years? It sure is holding in a lot of heat. For those areas to reach O degrees we need all of the urban heat island to be covered with a heavy blanket of snow much like the Blizzard of 93 so that heat can be reflected back to space.
Alaska sure has been cold even through this past Summer so I wonder if that means anything for us. I’m with you J.B. I hope we get the snow. Hopefully the jet stream will come down and see us more especially in December and January. Have a good day!
October 14th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
I’m now living in Huntsville and was born and raised in Tuscaloosa. I loved the snow event that we had there around the first of the year. I’d like to see a good snow my first winter up here, but I guess we’ll see when it happens, I guess. Generally, I’ve always thought that it snows up here more than T town.