Getting Back In The Saddle

I sure appreciate the time off this week… I run from 4:52 a.m. weekdays until almost midnight, and at my ripe old age it doesn’t come as easy as it did when I was in my 20s. But, I still have a love and passion for weather that has never faded. A few days with 8 hours of sleep, some quality time with family, no shaving or worries about my appearance, and I am good to go.

After an overdose of football today; I thought I would fire up the MacBook Pro and take a look at the Alabama weather situation I will face when I officially come back Monday.

The screaming message is the cold. I think this tidbit from the Birmingham NWS this afternoon is very interesting…

AS OF TODAY…WE ARE EXPECTING MORNING LOWS OF 25 DEGREES OR LESS AT BIRMINGHAM THROUGH THE WEEK…INTO NEXT WEEKEND. THE RECORD NUMBER OF CONSECUTIVE DAYS BELOW 25 DEGREES AT BIRMINGHAM IS ELEVEN…SET IN JANUARY OF 1940…WE COULD CHALLENGE THAT RECORD OVER THE UPCOMING DAYS. ADDITIONALLY…THE RECORD FOR CONSECUTIVE DAYS BELOW 20 DEGREES IS SEVEN…SET IN 1899. THAT RECORD LOOKS SAFE FOR NOW.

Bottom line is that we all need to be prepared for an extended period of very cold weather. MOS products (model output statistics) will perform horribly; the true nature of the Arctic air coming over a vast snow pack over the North American continent is something the models can’t handle. The GFS is printing 16 both Monday and Tuesday morning; actual lows will be in the 10 to 15 degree range, with single digits for the colder valleys.

SNOW? Still voodoo here, but global models paint a chance of some snow here late Wednesday night into Thursday morning. No doubt it will be cold enough; see the critical thickness values below (from the 18Z GFS):

Below you can see output Thursday morning from the GFS (18Z run), and the ECMWF (12Z run)…

No way to be specific with this until Sunday night or Monday morning… over the weekend we simply wait and watch.

Thanks to J.B. Elliott, Bill Murray, Brian Peters, Ashley Brand, and Jason Simpson for covering duties for me this week. I will be fully back on the grid Monday morning. In the meantime, I will enjoy watching Bill Castle and Scott Forrester cruise to California. That stretch of I-20 they drove today from Birmingham to Dallas/Fort Worth is very familiar to me since I used to work at KDFW-TV in Dallas in the mid 80s and drove that highway so many times. Now our guys are west of Fort Worth… it will be interesting to see how far they go tonight. Knowing Bill, they might be in New Mexico before they catch a nap!

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