Clouds but Mild – Rain Soon

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What a fantastic day for Christmas parades yesterday! Highs in Central Alabama reached the mid 60s with high cirrus clouds streaming overhead making for a fine day. Looks like we get one more fully dry day today, however, the clouds will be thickening up as the sky becomes mostly cloudy. We should stay mild even with the clouds thanks to a big trough over the western US. This is pumping warm air and moisture up the Mississippi River Valley into the Great Lakes area. So we should see highs in the mid 60s again today and perhaps into the upper 60s on Monday.

As the upper trough goes nearly horizontal, we will stay in moisture and relatively mild air through Wednesday with rain the big element in our days. Rain should gradually move into our state on Monday afternoon and evening starting first in the northwest counties and gradually spreading over much of the state into Tuesday. Due to the orientation of the upper trough, we will stay in the Pacific moisture until a strong short wave trough rotates around that big trough and finally kicks out of the Southwest US on Wednesday. This keeps us wet through Wednesday, a bit longer than the forecast was calling for yesterday. So clearing comes about on Thursday with some chillier air arriving them.

But for temperatures, Tuesday and Wednesday are likely to see very little temperature change with lows and highs remaining in the 50s and little daily change in temperature. As to rainfall, it appears that the gradient in rain amounts will be from Northwest Alabama with 3 to 4 inches of rain to Southeast Alabama with less than an inch of rain. I expect much of Central Alabama to be in the 1 to 3 inch range. This rain is likely to throw us over the top for our annual average on rain, so anything we get after Wednesday will be entered into the surplus category.

The long wave trough remains positioned over the eastern half of the country Thursday, but the short wave moves by, so we should see improving weather for the latter part of the week and into the weekend. Temperatures will be cooler than we’ve been seeing the last several days with lows around 30 and highs in the lower 50s.

Long range forecasts continue to show an active pattern with another round of wet weather around the 14th and again around the 19th. No signs on this run of any really extreme weather for us.

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Great time narrating the Helena Christmas Parade yesterday. The Helena Christmas Parade Committee did a great job on this years event. Hard to believe it was our 41st annual parade, but I have not been in town for all of them. It was so nice to have my daughter in town since Thanksgiving weekend. And she got to come to the parade yesterday, so that was nice to share with her. James Spann will be back with the next edition of the Weather Xtreme Video first thing Monday morning. Have a great Sunday and Godspeed.

-Brian-

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Category: Alabama's Weather