Calmer Days Ahead

An all new edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme video is available in the player below, and on iTunes…

**NOTE** The server where the Weather Xtreme video sits (the Flash version that you see here on the blog) is down… but the iTunes version is up and available. I will load the Flash version as soon as the server becomes available…..

Survey crews from the National Weather Service will be busy today as they go into the field for storm surveys. Of course, the most severe damage is across the southern half of the state in Enterprise and in Wilcox County north of Camden, around Millers Ferry Lake on the Alabama River. The current death toll in Alabama is 16; I hope that number goes no higher. The most significant damage in the Birmingham metro area seems to be in the Midway and Westwood neighborhoods in Adamsville where many trees were blown down on homes and cars.

There is also major damage across parts of northern Fayette County between Hubbertville and Glen Allen, and in Winston County near Arley and around the shores of Smith Lake. Storm damage was also reported near Samantha in northern Tuscaloosa County. We will pass along the storm reports today as they are relayed to us.

LOOKING AHEAD: Looks like at least five days of no rain ahead for Alabama. We should reach the 60s today and tomorrow, but a strong disturbance will pull colder air into Alabama tomorrow night and Sunday. We will have a hard time reaching 50 Sunday afternoon, and temperatures should be below freezing both Sunday and Monday morning.

NEXT WEEK: A warming trend begins Monday, and will continue through mid-week. Late in the week, an approaching cold front will bring the next chance of rain late Friday or Saturday (March 9-10), but at this time the GFS suggests this won’t be a big rain event.

WEATHER PARTY: Get all the latest weather news over on our sister site, WeatherParty.com. Be sure and register while you are there; you can submit stories and vote on them to determine what is published on the front page.

SPECIAL ABC 33/40 NOAA WEATHER RADIO OFFER: You can purchase a top of the line Midland NOAA Weather Radio at any Publix or Handy TV location in this part of Alabama for only $29.95. These receivers have the new digital technology that allows you to choose the counties for which the alarm sounds. Get more information here.

Thanks to everyone in the weather office and our news department for the help yesterday during our long form severe weather coverage… J.B. Elliott, Brian Peters and Jason Simpson worked with me at ABC 33/40 while John Oldshue and Ashley Brand were in the field. And, of course, thanks to Bill Murray for keeping the blog current with all of his updates. I have over 1,000 e-mails in the box this morning; it will take some time to go through all of that over the weekend… but I wanted to thank everyone for the pictures and video. They were all extremely helpful to us during the event yesterday.

I am actually headed out of town this morning for a three day meeting; I will return Monday of next week. Brian Peters will have the afternoon Weather Xtreme video later today. If I have time this afternoon and over the weekend while I am away I will post some viewer pictures of the weather and storm damage here on the blog. And, I have plenty of thoughts on yesterday’s event, how it was forecast, the school closing issue, etc… I will gather those thoughts and make some posts on coming days. Have a great weekend.

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