Snow Leaving – Cold Remains

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Wow, what a day we had yesterday with many locations across North and Central Alabama getting a true “white Christmas.” The ground never got white at my house, but it sure was nice to see the snow falling for much of the day on Christmas Day. And to start off the video this morning, I take a “snow tour” of some Skycam shots around Alabama.

But keep in mind that while the main event is over, lingering conditions as a result of the rain and snow yesterday are creating some travel issues this morning across Central Alabama. A number of accidents have been reported on area roadways, so our best advice is to avoid travel this morning if you do not have to go out! If you do have to go out, keep in mind that the kind of icy conditions we have this morning – called black ice – is very hard to see so use extreme caution.

The storm system which moved along the Gulf Coast yesterday giving us the snow event is now located along the Carolina coast poised to move up the East Coast of the US. Accordingly there are warnings and advisories all along the East Coast from Florida to Maine. This storm system will be dumping a lot of wintery precipitation on those folks. And for us, we stay cold today with snow showers likely especially this morning. And with the clouds likely to stick around much of the day, snow flurries are possible until this evening. Look for highs from 35 to 38 and with a strong, gusty northwest wind it is going to feel even colder.

Monday will be yet another cold day but the sunshine returns. Morning lows will be around 18 to 20 so another hard freeze – something we’ve come to expect from this December. Highs will once again struggle to reach the upper 30s. But be patient, Tuesday morning will be cold again with lows falling back to around 20, but the upper flow will begin changing fairly quickly signaling a warmup for mid and late week.

Moisture returns to our west, but as the big trough to the west moves northeastward it keeps us mainly under a weak ridge. This means that we will have to mention some rain chance but much of the precipitation holds to our west until the end of the week. Because the upper flow becomes southwesterly – nearly zonal – we will be mild – warm compared to today and tomorrow – with rain chances lingering into next weekend.

And the long range projections suggest the early days of 2011 will be mild as the Southeast US remains under a weak ridge with a big trough off to the west.

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I hope everyone had a great Christmas. The snow fall on Christmas Day was wonderful to see – I love daytime snow events. I expect to have the next Weather Xtreme Video posted by 8 am or so tomorrow morning. Stay warm, be safe, and Godspeed.

-Brian-

For your meteorological consulting needs, Coleman and Peters, LLC, can provide you with accurate, detailed information on past storms, lightning, flooding, and wind damage. Whether it is an insurance claim needing validation or a court case where weather was a factor, we can furnish you with information you need. Please call us at (205) 568-4401.

Category: Alabama's Weather