Rain Or Snow Tuesday Of Next Week?

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.

TODAY AND THE WEEKEND: While the wave named here as Andrew pounds the Northeast U.S. today, we will be watching “Bertha”, the short wave west of Alabama producing some light precipitation over Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. All global and mesoscale models shunt the bulk of this precipitation well to the south of here later today, tonight, and early tomorrow, and we will keep our forecast dry. However, we do expect a general increase in cloud cover today, and tonight and early tomorrow should be mostly cloudy. Light rain is possible over the southern quarter of Alabama, mainly near the coast.

The sky should become mostly sunny by tomorrow afternoon, and Sunday will be dry as well with ample sunshine. Afternoon highs will be generally in the 50 to 55 degree range through Sunday, with early morning lows at or below freezing. These temperatures are still below average for late February.

NEXT WEEK: With the GFS trending north, there will be plenty of buzz on our storm system we called “Clarence” that will impact Alabama early in the week. Be sure and watch the Weather Xtreme video for all of the details. The GEM continues to hint at a significant snow event for North Alabama, while the GFS and the ECMWF hint at mostly rain for the southern half of Alabama. Climatology suggests this developing low in the northern Gulf will bring accumulating snow to parts of the Southeast U.S., but it is important to note that at this phase of the game we are not comfortable making a specific forecast, so you can see our forecast over on the seven day page still says “Cloudy and colder with a chance of rain or snow”.

Stick with the plan… we take systems one at a time, and we have to get Bertha out of here before we can really focus on Clarence. We should be able to make a specific forecast Sunday morning, and certainly by the time I crank out the Monday morning Weather Xtreme video we will have a reasonably high confidence forecast since we will be staring Clarence in the eyes by then. It simply too early… everybody likes to have fun making guesses, but that isn’t our job here. We have to wait until there is reasonable skill, and this is not the time. Stay tuned.

VOODOO LAND: You can watch the Weather Xtreme video for details; “Dolly” shows up around March 8 with a good chance of rain or storms, but not the classic severe weather look we saw earlier in the week.

LIVE CHAT: We are now offering a real time chat here on the blog… open blog comments will stay in place, of course, but this will allow a more immediate method of communication for weather geeks. We do have moderators posted over there, so be sure and play nice. Members of our weather team will be there from time to time to answer questions; we will post those times we are available here on the blog.

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.

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

Today I have a weather program at Glencoe Middle School… I will be back by mid-afternoon, and the next Weather Xtreme video should be posted here by 3:30. Enjoy the day!

Category: Uncategorized