Too Warm For December

The Thursday afternoon edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme video is available in the player below, and on iTunes:

Not much to say about this very mild weather through the weekend. Looks like daily highs will be in the 70 to 73 degree range; a good 15 degrees above normal for mid-December in Alabama. And, the weather will remain dry through Sunday as well.

NEXT WEEK: The 12Z GFS splits the western trough into two chunks next week. The northern piece brings some rain to Alabama Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, and then the southern half of the storm brings more rain on Thursday. I am not sure if this is to be believed; the system might come at us as one big storm with rain and storms Wednesday night into Thursday. That is still the way I am leaning now. One way or another, rain will return to the state by the mid to late part of next week.

There is also lots of model inconsistencies on how the colder air arrives after that rain. No doubt we will turn colder at the end of next week as the rain moves out, and then most likely another deeper surge of colder air will arrive around Christmas. The 12Z GFS holds that air back until the day after Christmas, but no doubt the weather December 22-28 will be much colder than the weather will deal with during the next five days.

You can watch the video of a day by day breakdown of the 12Z GFS run if you are planning Christmas travel. Remember, there is not much skill in a specific forecast beyond seven days; we are looking more for trends out in those longer ranges. All model panels beyond seven days are in VOODOO LAND.

Be sure and read J.B’s story about the great Alabama New Years Eve snowstorm at the end of December 1963 (scroll down to the post below this one). I was living down in South Alabama at the time in Greenville, and I was only seven years old and don’t remember much about it. But, hearing accounts of the storm are amazing.

I had a great time over in East Alabama today speaking to the 6th graders at C.E. Hanna Elementary School in Oxford, a brand new school that opened in August. Watch for them on the KIDCAM today on ABC 33/40 News at 5:00. As usual, I took the roads less traveled and took some cool fog pictures in places like Dunnavant and Wolf Creek. I also have some images from our Skywatchers I will be posting here in a bit.

The next Weather Xtreme video will be posted by 7:00 a.m. tomorrow!

Category: Uncategorized