Another Nice Day

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After a beautiful day yesterday, Central Alabama is going to experience another gorgeous day with sunshine and temperatures in the middle 50s. Those temperatures are about 5 to 7 degrees below where we ought to be in late February. Our high should be about 61. But it will still be nice with the sunshine and light wind.

The next storm system in a long string of these will begin to impact us on Monday as clouds increase. The upper air system moves closer generating a surface low in the northwest Gulf of Mexico. The models are beginning to come together on the position of the low which is pretty close to a classic scenario for snow across the Southeast. But the area of best snow chances – or sweet spot – continues to be somewhat elusive.

These are the complicating factors for this event. The latest GFS run is just slightly slower than the previous run – not by much but just enough – so that we could see high temperatures once again climb into the 50s on Monday. This means more warmth to be overcome by the cold air advection. While the upper air temperature profile continues to support the idea of snow, there continues to be a substantial layer of warm air right next to the ground. While this warm layer is only a couple of thousand feet thick, it is certainly enough to melt a good deal of snow falling into it. So it really seems like the result is going to be a rain/snow mixture that might change over to mostly snow Tuesday as the moisture winds down. Add to these factors the fact that the warmth and sun of today and yesterday plus whatever sun we get Monday morning has certainly warmed the ground meaning that there is little chance any snow will stick.

I think the best chances for the rain/snow mix will come along a 100-mile band centered on and running just a little south of a line from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham to Jacksonville. Usually when we are just 36 hours from an event, we can get a pretty good handle on it. But please remember that the recipe for snow in the Southeast is a very exact one, so we’ve got to have all the necessary parameters come together in exactly the right proportion at exactly the right time. And that is not an excuse – that is the reason why snow forecasting here is tough.

The surface low zips over into the Southwest Atlantic on Wednesday bringing us out of the precipitation but keeping us chilly. We stay chilly on Thursday but by Friday a new trough to our west promises to build the ridge over the eastern half of the country returning Central Alabama to something close to typical temperatures by Saturday – that’s highs in the lower 60s.

That same trough is forecast to generate a strong surface low that will move toward Chicago and trail a cold front into the Southeast on Monday.

A quick peek into voodoo country continues to show an active weather pattern but with the main systems pulled slightly further north. This could mean the end to these Gulf low scenarios, but it’s voodoo so we’ll see.

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Thanks so much for staying with us. Be sure to check back over the next couple of days as we continue to watch and update information on the potential winter weather event for Monday night and Tuesday. I hope that you enjoy the day and Godspeed.

-Brian-

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