Rain Diminishing From the West
Drier air is pulling around the base of the upper trough back over Oklahoma and North Texas tonight and putting an end to the rain over Mississippi into Western Alabama.
The threat of heavy rain is over now for Central Alabama. The flash flood watch has been canceled.
Light to moderate rain continues north of I-59 tonight. A few showers were reforming over South Central Alabama. Heavy rain is over Southeast Alabama.
As the low moves to the east over South Alabama tonight, our winds will shift around to the north and colder air will pour in on brisk northerly winds. There will also be some wraparound precipitation.
Across North Alabama, temperatures are in the upper 30s over the Tennessee Valley. It was 36F at Muscle Shoals. It was 26F with snow at Nashville and 29F wit snow at Cookeville. Knoxville has 30F with freezing rain.
Temperatures overnight will nose up into the lower 40s across Central Alabama. They will begin to fall slowly during the pre-dawn hours on Saturday. There could be a brief period of light freezing rain over Northwest sections, over Marion and Winston Counties later tonight after midnight.
A winter weather advisory continues over the Tennessee Valley Counties, so check conditions if you will be driving from Marion through Winston, Cullman, Marshall, Dekalb and Jackson Counties and points north tonight or Saturday morning.
In the I-20 corridor, temperatures should remain above freezing through the event, falling during the day to near freezing late tomorrow afternoon.
There will be a chance of light precipitation Saturday, ending from the west. It could be snow flurries over mainly northeast Alabama.
WATCHING THE WIRE TONIGHT
…Drifts to 2 feet near Poplar Bluff, MO.
…3 to 4 inches of snow in Nashville with some freezing rain on top of the snow earlier.
…8.5 inches of snow in Asheville NC.
…7 inches of snow at Owasso near Tulsa OK
…2 inches of snow at Murray KY with heavy snow falling
…Memphis NWS reports 6 inches of snow at Atoka in Tipton Co., TN.
…Heavy snow reported in Charlotte NC…
…Richmond expecting 5-10 inches of snow by Sunday morning
…The D.C. area is expecting 1-3 inches of snow tomorrow afternoon
January 29th, 2010 at 10:48 pm
Hey Bill: The first two words of your forecast discussion, “drier air” pretty much sums up what we’ve had this evening here just west of Marietta and from what I can tell over most of North-North Central Georgia. We’ve had just a steady light rain, on and off. Checked Blairsville in the mtns, their forecast was for 7″ to 11″ of snow/sleet possible, under a Winter Storm Warning. Current conditions (11:00pm-EST) at Blairsville 34degrees and light rain. I assume drier air worked itself into part of the moisture shield throughout north GA. and shut off any heavier precip. I would be surprised if we’ve had a 1/4″ of rain this evening here close to Marietta. Looking to the west I see very little moisture heading this way. I would imagine Peachtree City NWS will be changing their forecast package for the rest of tonight and tomorrow over most of the CWA very soon. I know it’s tough forecasting winter weather in the south and as James says, you can always expect a few surprises, I guess this is one of the things he was talking about.