Just A Few Showers Tomorrow

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CLOUDS THICKEN TONIGHT: Doesn’t look too good for viewing the lunar eclipse tonight… it begins at 12:33 a.m. CST, just after midnight tonight, with totality beginning at 1:41 a.m. and lasting for 72 minutes. There could be enough thin spots for a few folks to get a good look, but the general trend will be for increasing clouds statewide tonight.

SHOWERS TOMORROW? A weak impulse could squeeze out a few scattered showers, but with weak dynamic lift and very limited moisture it sure doesn’t look like a big deal. The 12Z NAM is still printing 0.08″ for Birmingham, but I sure get the idea lots of places won’t get enough rain to measure.

WEDNESDAY/THURSDAY: These two days should be dry and pleasant, with a mix of sun and clouds and a high in the upper 50s.

CHRISTMAS STORM: Our weather turns wet by Friday night as a upper trough helps to spin up a surface low somewhere across the Deep South. Watch the Weather Xtreme video for details… the 12Z GFS continues to show a relatively weak looking storm system, with rain at times late Friday through early Saturday morning, followed by a sharp change to colder temperatures on Christmas day. Maybe enough moisture for a few snow flurries on the back side of the departing storm system over Northeast Alabama, but nothing beyond that.

We do note the ECMWF is a little more aggressive with the system, showing a broad low near Tallahassee, with potential for around one inch of snow over the Tennessee Valley (still mostly rain for Birmingham and the I-20 corridor). The Canadian GEM goes crazy with a few inches of snow for I-20 folks, but the GEM has been performing horribly this cold weather season and for now that solution is rejected.

No doubt the dreamers of a white Christmas will want to watch the situation closely in coming days, but we don’t see enough evidence for us to really change our forecast. We will mention rain late Friday and Friday night, followed by a cold and windy Christmas day with potential for a few snow flurries, mainly over Northeast Alabama. We might have a hard time getting out of the 30s Saturday. Sunday looks cold and dry with a high in the low 40s.

NEXT WEEK: Confidence in any specific solution will be low since it looks like we are going into a pattern change with the Greenland block breaking down and the NAO going positive around the arrival of the new year. See the Weather Xtreme video for a look at how the 12Z operational GFS handles things as we kick off 2011.

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. We record this week’s show at 8:30 CST tonight… we will talk with Jason Samenow of the Capital Weather Gang, the online weather publication of the Washington Post. In addition, Jeff Lyons from WFIE in Evansville will be along as the Guest Panelist. The other panelists will be asked to talk about their favorite wacky weatherperson. Who is yours? In addition, Laura Radford from the University of Alabama will discuss her research into how the public interprets hurricane graphics that include the cone of uncertainty. You can watch/listen live via uStream here.

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Look for the next Weather Xtreme video here by 7:30 a.m. tomorrow…

Tags: showers

Category: Alabama's Weather