Cold, Wintery Start to March

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Today marks the first day to meteorological spring even though the sun doesn’t officially cross into the northern hemisphere until March 20th. And it sure looks like March is off to a chilly, wintery start.

You only have to look to the upper air pattern to see why we are so cold. A big trough is being carved out over the eastern half of the country as we see a continuation of weak disturbances moving through the flow that bring new shots of cold air. Central Alabama did not get out of the 40s yesterday with highs that were about 17 degrees below seasonal values – based on the observed high at the Birmingham airport. The upper low will traverse the Southeast US during the next 36 hours of so, and with that cold core pattern we’ll see light snow and snow flurries across the northern portion of Alabama generally north of the I-20 corridor this evening into Saturday. The trough axis should go by late Saturday producing some pretty cold mornings for Sunday and Monday. Lows both mornings should dip into the 20s with some colder spots getting into the 17 to 20 range.

With a strong northerly flow aloft, Sunday remains a chilly day with highs remaining in the 40s. But thanks to the progressive pattern aloft, the upper ridge returns on Monday allowing for a slight warmup. Highs Monday should climb into the middle 50s. But with a fast flow, the next system will be taking shape just to our west with another strong upper low and a surface low which is projected to move across the Southeast US on Tuesday. Look for rain to return Monday evening into the first half of Tuesday. We chill down again on Wednesday with lows again slightly below freezing with highs finding it hard to reach 50.

Another ridge builds into the eastern US on Thursday so we should see a nice warmup for the latter part of the week and into the weekend as temperatures return to more seasonal values. Looks like the next weather system will develop over the weekend to our west giving us a mostly dry weekend before rain chances ramp up on Monday.

The long range projections continue to show a fairly fast flow with weather systems every three days or so. Rain comes on Monday the 11th and again around the 15th.

January and February have been pretty wet, but it looks like rainfall for the early days of March will be fairly light. Not much moisture with the snow event tonight and Saturday, and around a half to one inch of rain with the system on Monday and Tuesday. There does not appear to be much potential for severe weather with the Monday/Tuesday system.

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James was handling a breakfast banquet this morning, but I believe he will be cranking out another Weather Xtreme Video this afternoon. I’ll be back with the discussions on Saturday and Sunday. Godspeed.

-Brian-

Category: Alabama's Weather