Wind tomorrow/tomorrow night

Winds are already becoming a little gusty this afternoon, as a low pressure area develops over Texas. As pressures drop rapidly to our west tonight and tomorrow, and yet cold air coming down the east side of the Appalachian Mountains increases pressures to our east, the pressure gradient will increase substantially over Alabama. So, air will be trying to move very quickly from high to low pressure, creating high winds.

We do expect a line of thunderstorms to move through tomorrow evening, but it will be very windy even before the storms arrive. Take a look at the model-predicted pressure gradient-only wind gusts (not related to thunderstorms) from this evening through Christmas morning.

This indicates that winds will gust up to 30-40 mph at times tomorrow, and as high as 45 mph tomorrow evening. Some of the higher ridges will see wind gusts over 50 mph. So, you’ll need to make sure and secure outdoor furniture or other items, and also secure well or take down/turn off outdoor Christmas decorations like lighted reindeer, inflatables, and other outdoor lights. My large “Noel” style candles have blown into the shrubbery before, and Frosty (our inflatable snowman, shown from blog position below) is already shaking at 20 mph, so he will probably need to stay deflated tomorrow and tomorrow night (sorry, I know they’re cool Christmas outdoor lights!), otherwise they may tear up or even come loose from the ground and go flying.

When the thunderstorms come through tomorrow evening, the winds could be damaging, with some winds over 70 mph possible. Here is the wind profile for tomorrow evening.

Notice that winds reach over 80 mph at 4,000 feet, not that high off the ground, so any thunderstorm downdrafts will bring down a lot of momentum. Hopefully, the lack of instability will keep the strong storms from developing this far northeast, but we’ll have to see. The greatest threat is over southwest Alabama. However, these storms could down trees and powerlines tomorrow evening, sometime between 5 pm and 2 am, so please be careful if you’re out for Christmas Eve services or activities.

Category: Met 101/Weather History