The latest information – 1205 am

Latest NAM and GFS suggest that the warm nose at 850 mb will be a little stronger than we might have thought, especially given how quickly the cold air is coming in tonight (already in the teens in parts of north Alabama).  However, this system is very dynamic, and a strong 850 mb southerly jet will propgate in here tomorrow night late, bringing warm air in between 4,000 and 8,000 feet.  (There is even a chance we could see a little thunder in this storm.)

Now, we still expect the precipitation to start out as snow late tomorrow afternoon in west Alabama, and as snow in BHM around sunset, with snowfall amounts ranging from 2-3″ in BHM to 4-8″ in north Alabama.  The reason for the lower snow total at BHM is that we now think there is a good chance that the precipitation could change over to freezing rain (and maybe sleet) after midnight tomorrow night, causing some icing. 

Over south Alabama (Clanton, MGM, Auburn, Demopolis, Troy, Opp, Greenville), the ice will be a bigger deal, with up to 1/2″ possible.  There will be power outages down there.  There may be some here in central Alabama too.

Since the models are not really completely in line with what we expected to see given the rapid cold air movement tonight, still consider this a rapidly developing situation, and the forecast could change a little more before the precip gets here.

Category: Alabama's Weather