Soaked…

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

SOAKED: My rain gauge here in North Shelby County is showing 1.31″ as I write this early Friday morning (that is since midnight)… other quick totals from around the SKYCAM network (since midnight) include:

Cheaha State Park 1.33″
Downtown Birmingham 1.22″
Inverness 1.02″
Cullman 0.88″
Gadsden 0.58″
Tuscaloosa 0.65″
Demopolis 0.58″
Jasper 0.44″
Hamilton 0.20″

We note the NEXRAD is estimating rain totals well over three inches down in Southwest Alabama in the general area between Jackson and Camden. Scroll down to read a longer list of rain totals around the state on the post below this one.

The rain will continue through the morning, but will be ending from west to east this afternoon as a dry slot moves into the state from the west. Tomorrow promises to be a very nice day with ample sunshine and a high in the low 60s. Don’t you know the organizers of the Papajohns.com Bowl at Legion Field are happy with that after this kind of day…

MORE RAIN BY SUNDAY NIGHT: The next upper trough will spin up a surface low in the Northwest Gulf of Mexico Sunday. The 06Z GFS is back to the lower idea, and doesn’t move the rain in here until late in the day Sunday. Sunday night looks wet, much like last night, with amounts over one inch possible as the surface low moves through far South Alabama.

CHRISTMAS DAY: The rain will end Monday morning, and colder air moves into the state. Looks like we will hover somewhere between 42 and 49 all day Monday with clouds much of the day.

Tuesday and Wednesday of next week look cool and dry with a light freeze each morning followed by a high in the 50s. The next rain event will then come at the end of the week, around Friday December 29 (one week from today).

LONG RANGE: Watch the video and you can see there is still no sign of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) flipping negative for the next 14 days. Until that happens it will be hard to be a long lasting shot of really cold air in here. It is also interesting to note the 06Z run of the GFS paints another blizzard for Denver on New Years Day. Not again!

I do think the Four Corners Storm Machine will be cranking out a storm system every three to five days; typical for an El Nino winter. That means relatively wet weather for Alabama and the Deep South for the next couple of weeks, and probably longer.

LOTS OF WEATHER NEWS over on our sister site, weatherparty.com. Many great articles on the Blizzard of 2006… I love the Airport Audio Slide show that was posted yesterday. Good stuff. Remember if you register you can post stories and vote on them.

How about the great Alabama Weather Legend J.B. posting on his vacation week at 5:15! What a trooper. Sounds like J.B. has a packed house for Christmas. Remember, we are on the holiday video schedule, so there will be only one video posted daily through Monday January 1… everything gets back to normal on January 2. I will have the next big blog discussion post by 3:00 or so this afternoon…

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