High Winds Continue Along Gravity Wave

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For those of you that are new to the blog, one of our bloggers is among the best gravity wave researchers in the nation, Tim Coleman from UAH. He has written many posts on the subject… including one about one hour ago. Scroll down to check it out. Or, search for “gravity wave” in the search box here on the blog and you will see all of his great articles on the subject.

Here are some late reports from the National Weather Service IM conferences:

*Hartselle [Morgan Co, AL] emergency mngr reports NON-TSTM WND DMG at 02:30 PM CST — several trees downed in Hartselle…associated with non thunderstorm wind gusts. time estimated.

*Decatur [Morgan Co, AL] emergency mngr reports NON-TSTM WND DMG at 02:35 PM CST — report of trees down around Decatur. also a roof was blown off of a business…associated with non-thunderstorm winds. time esimated.

*Brilliant [Marion Co, AL] amateur radio reports NON-TSTM WND DMG at 01:00 PM CST — gravity wave wind damages in areas of Brilliant, Winfield, Guin. sern quadrant of county in line and downsteam of previous lamar county report. numerous trees down and power line outages.

*Gust to 46 mph at a Redstone Arsenal met station in Huntsville, as of 2:45 PM

*Our Skywatcher in Northport just reported a wind gust to 36 mph.

ON THE POSITIVE SIDE: Nice to see the rain falling today, but we are being short-changed across the northern half of the state, as usual, due to the big convective mass moving through South Alabama. You can see the rain from our SKYCAM network here... looks like most North Alabama communities are going to get one-half inch or less. The big totals will be from the southern half of the state.

LOOKING AHEAD: Not much change in our thinking for the next five days… tomorrow will be dry with a high in the mid 60s along with a mix of sun and clouds.

Still looks like the best chance of rain over the weekend will come from about midnight Saturday night through noon Sunday… for now the chance of rain during the PapaJohns Bowl at Legion Field Saturday afternoon looks rather small. The high Saturday will be in the 60s for most of the state, but we will have to watch the wedge, cold air damming to the east. Some communities near the Georgia border, like Heflin, Wedowee, and Roanoke, might have a high only in the low 50s due to cold air slipping in from the east.

We are projecting rain totals of one-half inch over the weekend… and no severe weather due to the lack of instability. Colder air will begin to move into the state Sunday afternoon and temperatures could begin to fall.

CHRISTMAS WEEK: The 12Z GFS continues the idea of dry and cool weather on Christmas Eve… followed by increasing clouds and a chance of light rain by Christmas afternoon (Tuesday). Rain is more likely Tuesday night and Wednesday with the next wave coming along in the wave train. No evidence of a white Christmas on the 12Z run of the GFS at all…

Once again, not much reason to peer deep into voodoo country because of the inability to resolve specific waves in this very active pattern… but looks like our weather will remain changeable through at least the first two weeks of January. And, we note some stations in Alaska have been colder than 50 degrees below zero in recent days. That buildup of brutally cold air need to be watched.

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And… this late note from NWS Jackson… an EF2 tornado touched down in their CWA (county warning area) this morning:

4 Ene Brookhaven [Lincoln Co, MS] nws storm survey reports TORNADO of F2 at 09:00 AM CST — *** 1 inj *** update from nws storm survey team…2 mobile homes destroyed…camper trailer heavily damaged…workshop destroyed…numerous trees down on powerlines and several homes suffered moderate roof damage. the damage was along beesun road. tornado was rated an ef2.

Sorry for the late post today… been behind the power curve due to the gravity wave issues in Northwest Alabama… the next Weather Xtreme video will be posted here by 7:00 a.m. tomorrow as we get back on time!

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