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Warm-up Ahead But Remaining Dry

| March 18, 2007 @ 7:14 am | Reply

The Sunday edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme Video is available in the player below, and on iTunes…

This morning is a great example of how some clouds can influence the temperatures. Yesterday I was expecting us to see Sunday morning lows in Central Alabama around 34 degrees or so, but the clouds moved in overnight and Central Alabama temperatures this morning are only in the lower 40s. Temperatures still dipped into the 30s across the Tennessee Valley, so my temperature forecast was not a complete bust. There is nothing like the weather to keep you humble in this business.

Looks like warmer weather will be coming our way plus we are going to stay dry for much of the next week. The surface high edges off into the Atlantic today and Monday while in the upper levels we come under a strong ridge pattern. This will help us to stay dry and warm.

That ridge over the Southeast holds tough through much of the upcoming week as we see a lot of changes come about north and west of us. A strong trough digs into the west coast Tuesday, but by Thursday we see the development of a split flow. A cut-off low develops over the Southwest US and Northern Mexico while across the US/Canadian border a strong short wave approaches the Great Lakes. The strong westerlies along the Canadian border become detached from the closed low over the Southwest. And while all of that is happening, the Southeast and Alabama remain under a ridge pattern.

At the surface, a couple of front will approach the Southeast – one on Tuesday and another one on Friday/Saturday – but with that ridge aloft, those fronts will just not get close enough to really set off any significant rain events. Some small disturbances riding through the flow may bring clouds from time to time, but I believe we will remain essentially dry until late into next weekend.

Late into the weekend, the closed low begins to come out of the Southwest but as it does it will weaken. Present forecast models suggest our best chance for rain will come on Monday – perhaps as early as late Sunday.

And trolling into the far furture, the GFS seems to be holding tight to a strong storm system around March 29th. The timing may change a bit since we are at least 9 days out, but there seems to have been some consistency to this solution in the last couple of runs.

I really enjoyed the day yesterday working in Adamsville with all of the volunteers who showed up to help with the tornado clean up. I hope to have some pictures posted here later today that I took while I was out there yesterday. I really was impressed with all of the people who showed up to help those folks. It seems we at least put a dent in the clean-up but there is an awlful lot of work still to be done.

I hope you have a great Sunday. Enjoy the mild weather – it won’t be long before we start complaining about the heat. God bless.

-Brian-

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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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