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Cold Air Returns

| February 22, 2015 @ 7:43 am

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The weather really warmed up nicely yesterday with most of Central Alabama topping out in the lower to middle 60s before the rain began moving in around sunset. With the rain temperatures fell to the lower and middle 50s and most locations saw an inch or more of rain. Temperatures have been steady this morning, and these values will be the highs for the day as cold air returns allowing temperatures to hold or fall this afternoon. We should dry out a little in that the widespread showers this morning should diminish for the late morning and afternoon. But precipitation is forecast to return this evening and into Monday morning and therein lies the problem.

Without any sun today and with cold advection underway, temperatures will not be going up and are actually expected to fall during the day. We should drop below freezing in the early morning hours of Monday, perhaps a little earlier with the onset of more precipitation. The NWS in Birmingham has issued winter weather advisories for much of Central Alabama along and north of the Interstate 59 corridor for a mixture of wintry precipitation that could include some ice accumulation resulting in travel issues Monday morning. At this writing, the NWS in Huntsville has issued only a special weather statement about the potential for a wintry mix.

Timing of the winter weather will be somewhat tricky, but the northwest counties of Central Alabama including Winston, Marion, Lamar, Fayette, and Walker can expect wintry precipitation to begin as early as about 9 or 10 pm and continuing until late morning Monday. For the rest of the counties along the Interstate 59 corridor, the wintry precipitation is expected to begin a little later, generally from about midnight through 4 am and continue until close to noon on Monday.

snow 2

Precipitation should end or switch back to liquid as we gradually warm above freezing during the late morning and early afternoon hours of Monday. We’ve said it here numerous times, but it bears repeating. Winter weather situations are very fluid and only a degree or two here or there can make a dramatic change to the weather we experience. There is always some uncertainty in any weather forecast, so for your safety and peace of mind, stay informed on the latest information here or through radio and television stations.

There is another shot at a wintry mix of precipitation on Tuesday morning which has the potential for creating some travel issues again. There’s even more uncertainty this far out as the GFS has trended a bit drier in the latest run. With cold air pushing a bit further south on Tuesday morning, we could see a light wintry mix down into counties south of Interstate 20. But that’s definitely a stay tuned item!

The overall weather pattern remains busy with an active southern stream upper flow pattern. The overall long wave trough keeps the eastern half of the country cold, but it does look like we moderate enough across the southern tier of the US that we should see whatever precipitation that occurs to come in the form of rain without winter weather concerns. Lows will continue to drop to near 30 with highs mainly in the upper 40s and lower 50s through the end of the week. So it looks like February will come in as one of the colder ones on record.

Looking into voodoo country, a strong upper closed low is forecast to come out of the southern Rockies around March 3rd, and this has the potential for bringing strong to severe storms with it. And the southern stream remains active with yet another short wave trough around the 6th and again around the 9th. Sometimes there is just no rest when you are dealing with the weather.

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ALABAMA POWER IS READY, ARE YOU? Our friends at Alabama Power are monitoring the forecast closely, ready to deploy people and assets to quickly address any outages that might occur. Read a special message from Ike Piggot about their commitment to their customers.

Remember to keep checking back here for updates as this whole weather situation unfolds. James Spann will have the next edition of the Weather Xtreme Video first thing on Monday morning. Enjoy the day, be safe, and Godspeed.

-Brian-

Category: Alabama's Weather

About the Author ()

Brian Peters is one of the television meteorologists at ABC3340 in Birmingham and a retired NWS Warning Coordination Meteorologist. He handles the weekend Weather Xtreme Videos and forecast discussion and is the Webmaster for the popular WeatherBrains podcast.

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