Some Forecast Ramblings

Since there is not normally an afternoon Weather Xtreme Video on weekends, I thought I might ramble a bit here on the prospects for another winter weather event for North and Central Alabama primarily on Monday morning. These are truly some ramblings, so I hope I don’t confuse anyone.

Model consistency seems to be reasonably good between the NAM and the GFS. They both have limited moisture and the both project about two to three tenths of liquid water in the upcoming event – so using the standard conversion, that translates to 2 to 3 inches of snow. Problem is, however, that the precipitation is likely to begin as rain for a number of hours. This means you need to whittle a few tenths off those numbers, so I think my morning projection of 1 to 2 inches still looks fairly good.

Also it is worth noting that fast moving “clipper systems” like this one do not usually give us significant snowfall. However, these kinds of systems also seem to provide the setting for widespread snows as opposed to narrow banks like we often see with Gulf systems.

The area to be affected still looks to be roughly along and north of the I-20 corridor – just run it straight west to the Mississippi line and not down to Tuscaloosa!

Timing still points toward a change of precipitation between about 10 pm Sunday night and about 3 am Monday morning. Using model soundings, the change over will be rather abrupt. Because of this, I have some concerns about icing. I much prefer the precipitation starting as snow and staying mostly snow, but this upcoming event is going to be different, hence my concern for icing issues.

Fortunately, while I mentioned the morning commute for Monday in the video this morning, I forgot that Monday is also Presidents Day, so a holiday for many. This may really help to reduce the impact of this event since the need for people to be out and about will be significantly reduced. I know that Shelby County schools are supposed to be closed on Monday, but I have no information nor would I expect any this early.

Winter weather advisories are already being posted to the northwest of us, and I believe it is likely that the Huntsville and Birmingham NWS offices are probably going to be considering some sort of action. They might wait a tad longer since the real event is not for another 36 hours or so.

So, enjoy the sun and the relatively warm temperatures today since tomorrow is probably going to be cloudy with highs again only in the 40s.

What I hate most is this next snow event will probably come mostly in the dark, so I won’t be able to sit on my front porch or my wife’s upstairs window seat and watch the fluffy white flakes drift lazily to the ground!

-Brian-

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