Two Storm Systems Over The Next Seven Days

An all new edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme video is available in the player below, and on iTunes…

Be sure and check out Tim Coleman’s excellent post below with some interesting radar images of great TBSS and BWER examples (three body scatter spike/bounded weak echo region). Good

Our weather will be very changeable during the next 7 days, and most likely, over the month of February.

TODAY: Should be a beautiful day with ample sunshine and a high in the low 60s. To the west, thunderstorms will develop in advance of storm number one, and SPC has a slight risk of severe weather out for places like Dallas/Fort Worth and Shreveport.

TOMORROW: Temperatures will rise into the mid to upper 60s as a good southerly wind kicks in. Most of the day in Alabama will be dry, although showers could move into West Alabama late in the day. The main round of showers and storms will come tomorrow night, generally in the 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. time frame. There will be some surface based instability, so thunderstorms could be involved, but severe storms are not expected on this end of Alabama. SPC has a slight risk of severe weather for the Gulf coast region, mainly the coastal parishes of Louisiana, and the coastal counties of Mississippi and Alabama. This system is nothing like the big one last night that produced the historic tornado outbreak across the Mid-South.

Rain totals of one-half to one inch look likely tomorrow night, with the heavier amounts over Northwest Alabama. The NAM is pretty aggressive with the rain; extraction from that model shows 1.31″ for Birmingham, while the GFS shows 0.71″, which is probably closer to reality.

WEDNESDAY: The rain moves out early in the day, and much colder air drops into the state. The latest MOS products are suggesting we won’t get out of the mid 40s, even with a clearing sky. Then, we drop well down into the 20s by Thursday morning.

STORM NUMBER TWO: After a nice day Thursday with sunny and warmer conditions, the second storm will impact Alabama at the end of the week. The 06Z GFS shows the main rain of precipitation coming Friday night, and based on the strength of the upper trough, it looks like we might have some risk of strong to severe storms. For now, the GFS shows the surface low moving through North Alabama, which would mean the best chance of severe weather Friday night will be over the southern half of the state. Some really good rain totals seem likely; totals of one to two inches seem likely.

Lets get tomorrow night’s system out of here, and then we can really focus on the Friday night situation.

WEEKEND PEEK: Colder air drops into Alabama following storm number two; GFS MOS might be too warm for Saturday and Sunday; highs could be only in the 40s. Looks like the rain should end Saturday morning, and the rest of the weekend will be dry.

STORM ALERT 2008 TOMORROW NIGHT: A reminder… we will be in Northport tomorrow night for Storm Alert 2008, our annual severe weather awareness tour across Alabama. We will be at the Northport Civic Center (on U.S. 82); the doors open at 5:00, the show begins at 7:00. Everyone gets a free t-shirt, and other goodies, and you can meet the entire ABC 33/40 Weather Team. Of course, there will be some really good Alabama weather stories put together by the great legend Bill Castle. We hope to see you tomorrow night!

WEATHER BRAINS: Don’t forget you can listen to our weekly 30 minute netcast anytime on the web, or on iTunes. This is the show all about weather featuring many familiar voices, including our meteorologists here at ABC 33/40. You can even listen here on the blog; look for the player on the top left. We will be recording a new show tonight, which of course, will feature last week’s Super Tuesday tornado outbreak. Tim Simpson of WREG-TV in Memphis will be our guest, and we hope to have the show posted by 10:00 or 11:00 tonight.

Busy day today… headed out to the new Rick and Bubba studio/teleport this morning (today is grand opening day) in Vestavia, then I will be down in Bibb County speaking to the kids at Randolph Elementary School. I will have the next Weather Xtreme video posted by 3:30 or so this afternoon. Enjoy the day!

Category: Uncategorized