Saturday Morning Flizzard!

Lots of reports of snow flurries and some light snow across the area this morning.

Radar shows very faint echoes on reflectivity across much of the southeastern half of Walker County across the southwestern two thirds of Jefferson County, then over much of Shelby County on into southern Talladega, Coosa eastern Chilton and even into Elmore Counties.

You can see that on this radar with a more sensitive color table.

Here is a dual panel with reflectivity on the left and Dual Pol Hydrometeor Classification on the right. I left the legend up for the right panel. You can see plenty of graupel in peach, dry snow in light blue and unknown in magenta (probably a mix).

Graupel is what happens when snowflakes run into supercooled water droplets and freeze into little white pellets. They look like small hail, but they’re not hail, and they’re not sleet. They’re graupel!

Some reports from the Flizzard:

…7:43 Flurries getting heavier in Alabaster
…7:36 Light snow in Cahaba Heights sticking to roofs
…7:26 Nice snow shower in Columbiana
…7:14 Snow flurries in Chelsea. Large flakes.
…7:05 Snowing in Columbus MS
…7:02 @lhcoop says “Light snow coming down this morning in Jasper. March is roaring in like a lion!”
…6:52 It’s snowing in Moody and sticking to rooftops!

Here is a picture from Section in Northeast Alabama courtesy of Brian Harper via Jason Simpson at WHNT.

Only a few lucky folks will see enough snow to stick on colder objects like grills, decks and cars. Heavier showers may stick on roofs and grass. There are no reports of any road problems at all across Central Alabama. The winter weather advisory continues til noon for Blount, Calhoun, Cherokee, Clay, Cleburne, Etowah, Fayette, Jefferson, Lamar, Marion, Pickens, Randolph, Shelby, St. Clair, Talladega, Tuscaloosa, Walker and Winston Counties. The advisory was canceled for DeKalb and Jackson Counties earlier.

Muscle Shoals did set a record for snowfall yesterday. They recorded a trace. Woohoo! That tied the record set in 2005. Who says it never snows in Alabama?

Category: Alabama's Weather, Winter Weather