What’s Going on Now?

Little or nothing is the answer.

But it was supposed to be that way. We did not expect any wintry precipitation at all today and for much of Central Alabama we will not see any until Sunday afternoon.

Where is the low-pressure area?

It is developing tonight over NE Mexico. It will then track eastward across the NW Gulf and then east very close to the Louisiana/Mississippi/Alabama coast and then curve across North Florida and then up the Atlantic Seaboard. This is a good position to pump in a lot of moist air into Alabama and other areas.

Here in Central Alabama, we expect low temperatures by morning to be close to 22. It has been chilly all day with a brisk north wind and high temperatures only in the low 40s in most areas, so the infrastructure is already cool and the low temperature Sunday morning will finish the job of giving bridges and overpasses a thorough chilling.

We expect wintry precipitation to start in SW Alabama Sunday morning and spread toward the north and NE reaching the Greater Birmingham area at some point Sunday afternoon and increasing late in the day and especially Sunday night.

The NWS projects a snow accumulation for the Birmingham area of 3 to 5 inches Sunday night with an ice accumulation of up to 1/4 inch. That 1/4 inch ice accumulation is a lot. Our forecast calls for 4 to 8 inches Sunday night and Monday morning. The NWS has a Winter Storm Watch posted for the entire area and that will surely be upgraded to a Winter Storm Warning at some point Sunday.

Travel may become extremely difficult or even impossible Sunday night and Monday morning. It only takes a small amount of freezing rain to cause all types of problems–not only on the bridges, overpasses and highways, but also people slipping and falling.

The temperature may linger around 28 all night Sunday night and we may see a mix of light snow, light sleet and light freezing rain on Monday. Don’t look for much improvement until Tuesday afternoon.

This is a significant winter storm and should not be taken lightly.

You can scroll down and see a lot of discussions from other people in our group with an extensive discussion of all the models. No need of me rehashing all of that.

Just between you and me, I sometimes grow weary of weather models, even though I study them also like the rest of our group. Even some of the best models can change their mind like a little kid in a toy store.

We will have frequent updates on this major event throughout the weekend and into early next week.

Category: Winter Weather