Severe Weather Wednesday?

An all new edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme video is available in the player below. You can subscribe to the Weather Xtreme video on iTunes by clicking here.

SPRING-LIKE DAYS: Very mild weather continues through mid-week; look for highs in the 70 to 75 degree range today and tomorrow, almost 20 degrees above average values for early February in Alabama. The sky today will feature a mix of sun and high clouds, and a few cloudy periods are possible tomorrow, but most of the action will remain north and west of Alabama for the next 36 hours. The best chance of showers in our state will be over the Tennessee Valley tomorrow; anything down here should be pretty isolated.

TO THE WEST: Severe weather is possible today for places like Omaha and Kansas City with the lead short wave lifting out of the Southwest U.S., but the main show will be tomorrow with the main system over East Texas, Louisiana, and points north. See the Weather Xtreme video for complete details. The highest severe weather probabilities tomorrow are around the Ark-La-Tex area; places like Shreveport and Texarkana will have a very active day.

WEDNESDAY: This is the day when severe weather is possible in Alabama; SPC has all of the state in a slight risk of severe weather. Seems like the main window will be from around 12:00 noon to 6:00 p.m. As usual with most early season events, instability values will be rather marginal, and most likely we will be dealing with a squall line racing across the state, with potential for damaging straight line winds. Helicity values (0 to 3 km greater than 250 m2/s2) suggest a few small spin-up tornadoes are possible within the line, but most likely damaging wind will be the greatest threat. Pretty much your typical February set-up with good dynamics, but marginal thermodynamics.

THURSDAY AND FRIDAY: No Arctic air behind our mid-week system, so the weather stays comfortable Thursday and Friday with afternoon highs in the 60s. A disturbance along the Gulf coast Friday could bring a few showers to the southern half of the state during the day, with showers possible up into North Alabama Friday night. Doesn’t look like a major rain event for now.

WEEKEND PEEK: A very fast upper flow will make for low forecast confidence, but at this time Saturday looks generally dry and pleasant with a high in the low 60s. Some hint of showers returning on Sunday, but not an all-day kind of rain.

VOODOO LAND: Snow lovers will sure enjoy the 06Z GFS look for February 21, but this is all voodoo for now (see the Weather Xtreme video). The NAO is trending strongly negative during the last two weeks of the month, so no doubt we will be colder at that time (compared to the weather this week).

STORM ALERT 2009: Our big show this week comes to Jasper; we will be at the CHS building downtown Jasper Thursday at 7:00. This is our annual severe weather tour across Alabama as we get folks ready for the spring tornado season. I will also do a one-man version of the show tomorrow night at Sylvan Springs United Methodist Church at 7:00… I would love to see you there if you live in that part of the state.

WEATHER BRAINS: Don’t forget you can listen to our weekly 30 minute netcast anytime on the web, or on iTunes. This is the show all about weather featuring many familiar voices, including our meteorologists here at ABC 33/40. You can even listen here on the blog; look for the player on the top left. Dave Schwartz, formerly of the Weather Channel, will be our guest tonight, and the show should be posted by 11:00 p.m.

TWITTER: Don’t forget, you can follow our news and weather updates from ABC 33/40 on Twitter here. And, my personal Twitter feed is here if you want to keep up with my adventures in life. Twitter is a short messaging service you can receive via the web, cell phone, or IM.

Today I am doing a weather program at Riverchase Elementary School, then I am headed to the office and the afternoon edition of the Weather Xtreme video should be posted by 3:30 or so. Enjoy the day!

Category: Uncategorized