Colder Air Moving In

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.

A COOL CHANGE: Colder air is moving into Northwest Alabama; Russellville is showing only 46 degrees at 2:00, while Birmingham is 13 degrees warmer at 59. Unfortunately, the cold air will win the battle, and colder weather will be the story in the days ahead. The high tomorrow will be in the low 50s, followed by mid to upper 40s on Wednesday. We probably won’t get past the mid 40s Thursday.

THE WAVE TRAIN: As colder air filters into the state, a series of waves will impact the state during the next 7 days. Let’s take them in order…

WAVE ONE: This one will bring snow to Texas tomorrow.. Dallas/Fort Worth is under a winter weather advisory for potential for a trace to two inches. The heaviest snow should be over the southern part of the Metroplex. This wave will bring the risk of a few sprinkles or snow flurries to North and Central Alabama late tomorrow night into Wednesday morning; it looks like the best chance will come from about 12:00 midnight tomorrow night to around 8:00 a.m. Wednesday. The deeper moisture will be over far South Alabama, so precipitation here will be pretty light. But again, you might see a snow flake or two late tomorrow night or early Wednesday morning.

WAVE TWO: More snow from this one for parts of Texas, North Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi Friday and Friday night. Much like wave one, the deepest moisture from this feature will stay south of us, but it has the potential to bring some light snow, snow flurries, or sprinkles of rain late Friday night into Saturday morning. For now it looks like the main window for precipitation will be from about 12:00 midnight Friday night through 9:00 a.m. Saturday. We have seen hints of some light snow accumulation for the southern half of Alabama with this system, but not enough evidence for now to be really confident in that idea. It looks like you have a better chance of a dusting of snow in Atmore, Brewton, and Geneva as opposed to Birmingham in this case.

WAVE THREE: This should be the most significant storm for the Southeast U.S., and it comes early next week in the Monday-Tuesday time frame. A deep surface low spins up in the Northeast Gulf, and brings the threat of rain, and perhaps some snow to parts of Alabama. The 12Z global model runs have placed the surface low pretty far to the south, with I-20 being on the northern periphery of the system, but don’t be surprised if the models trend northward, which has been the case this season as we look at storm system 6 to 7 days in advance. Snow fans will want to watch this one closely as well. Way too early to be specific with the active southern stream; we have to get through wave one and wave two before we can really deal specifically with wave three.

WHAT ABOUT THE WEEKEND? Aside from the risk of sprinkles or flurries Saturday morning, the weather looks mostly dry but chilly, with highs in the 45 to 52 degree range. Early morning lows should be at or below freezing.

The active weather pattern continues well into March, so no dull moments around here. And, it looks like temperatures will remain generally below average into early March as well.

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. Tonight’s show will be an interesting one as we talk about the effect of social media on television weather. Some big brain TV weather guys will join the show, including Brad Panovich from Charlotte, Nate Johnson from Raleigh and Morgan Palmer from Fort Myers. We will talk about the pros and cons, their favorite tools, advice to meteorologists getting started with social media and the future of it all. The new episode should be posted by midnight.

FOLLOW ALONG: Here are our weather team Twitter accounts….

I had a great time at the Homewood Senior Adult Center today… very nice crowd and an excellent lunch. Look for the next Weather Xtreme video here by 7:00 a.m. tomorrow…

Category: Uncategorized