Cold Still but Warmer Weather Ahead

| December 27, 2010 @ 7:11 am | 3 Replies

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A blanket of clouds through early this morning helped to keep temperatures across Central Alabama in the upper 20s, but there is still a good deal of cold air just to our northwest so look for one more cold day along with one very cold morning Tuesday morning before the warmup gets underway!

We should see a good deal of sunshine today that will definitely melt whatever snow is leftover from the last couple of days. But while there will be lots of sun, I don’t expect to see temperatures climb much above the upper 30s for most of us. A few places south of Birmingham could see the 40-degree mark. Then the surface high located around Dyersburg, TN, this morning where the temperature was 18 degrees will be settling in over South Mississippi and Southwest Alabama allowing full radiational cooling. That means one of the coldest days of 2010 – again – with lows dropping into the teens.

But take heart, the upper air pattern changes appreciably Tuesday as a ridge comes over us and switches the flow to more of a southwesterly direction. This should herald a warmup that will have us back into the 60s by Friday and the weekend. Of course, a southwesterly flow also generally means some moisture. That along with a couple of small short waves coming out of the trough near the Four Corners area will bring rain chances to Alabama beginning Thursday.

Friday will remain mostly cloudy while the rain chances diminish before the big trough to our west kicks out and bring the main weather to us on New Years Day. Rain should end from the northwest on January 2nd and fortunately for us the cold air appears to stay well to our north. So as we enter 2011, it will start wet but relatively mild compared to the December we’ve been having.

Voodoo country remains active with another big trough and a shot of cold air around the 8th. At the end of the period – 372 hours out – the GFS is painting a very large and mild ridge over the eastern half of the country. Some how that ridge just seems a little too big, so I’m not going to put a lot of faith in it for the moment. In fact, the NAO suggests colder conditions, so we’ll wait and see how that evolves.

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Recording WeatherBrains this morning so going to be a busy day. I expect to have the next edition of the Weather Xtreme Video posted by 7:30 or 8 tomorrow morning. Enjoy the day, stay warm, and Godspeed.

-Brian-

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Category: Alabama's Weather

About the Author ()

Brian Peters is one of the television meteorologists at ABC3340 in Birmingham and a retired NWS Warning Coordination Meteorologist. He handles the weekend Weather Xtreme Videos and forecast discussion and is the Webmaster for the popular WeatherBrains podcast.

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