Low Clouds Hanging In

*** No Weather Xtreme Video this morning *** I am in Santa Monica, CA, to attend the Rose Bowl on New Years Day, and just don’t have the bandwidth to post a full video so will at least post a discussion.

Clouds were hanging in across Central Alabama this morning in a thick stratus deck even with a weak cold front traversing the area. There will be some drizzle with the low clouds though little was showing up on radar. We should see the clouds gradually break up during the day, but they may stick around for much of the morning. Highs today will only be in the lower 50s as slightly colder air filters into Central Alabama on a brisk north wind.

The weather pattern stays dry for a couple of days for us as a surface high pressure system settles in over the Southeast US sliding from west to east across our area. We dip back below freezing for morning lows on Wednesday and Thursday as temperatures drop into the middle and upper 20s. New Years Day should be nice but cool with a high in the lower 50s.

Another round of wet weather sets up for Central Alabama as a low closes off over the Four Corners area of the Southwest US on Thursday and ejects out to the northeast on Friday and Saturday. This will allow high level moisture to once again stream into the Southeast US from the Pacific while the low level surface flow comes around to the south to tap into Gulf moisture. This is a similar set up to our last heavy rain event, however, I don’t think the rainfall will be quite as heavy with rainfall amounts of 1 to 2 inches possible. Because of the previous heavy rain event, we’ll have to be vigilant once again for the potential for flash flooding since there won’t be much time for the ground to dry out that much.

The upper closed low and short wave move by us on Sunday bringing an end to the precipitation, but a long wave trough sets up across the eastern US that will keep us a bit colder than average as we go through the weekend and into early next week.

The pattern continues to be fairly active as we head out into voodoo country with more wet weather around the 9th and 10th and the 12th and 13th as a series of vigorous waves move through the upper air flow.

I’ll try to post another discussion here tomorrow morning. Stay up with the latest weather with posts here.

-Brian-

Category: Alabama's Weather