One More Warm Day

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We have one more warm day to enjoy before someone opens the freezer door allowing a big chill down to occur for the first of 2012. Yesterday’s high at the Birmingham airport was 68 which is about 14 degrees above seasonal values, so we are indeed way above the averages for this time of year. And we do get to enjoy one more of those mild days as highs again rise into the middle and upper 60s.

On New Years Day, however, a strong cold front associated with a deepening upper trough will blast through the Southeast during the morning and early afternoon bringing an end to the mild weather and ushering in several days of very cold weather. Fortunately, as is often the case in the Southeast US, the cold snap will be relatively short-lived lasting only for three or four days before the temperatures moderate to values more typical of early January.

The upper trough moves off the East Coast of the US on Tuesday with another trough coming through the flow across the western Great Lakes. Tuesday and Wednesday mornings are likely to be the coldest we’ve seen in some time. But as the overall flow shifts Thursday and Friday, we’ll see a slow moderation so that by Friday we should be back to temperatures at or slightly above seasonal values. And all the while we should remain dry.

By Saturday another trough drops into the western US pumping up the southwesterly flow for us across the southern US. So the first weekend of 2012 is likely to be mild and there is some chance for rain since southwesterly flows tend to tap into Pacific moisture.

Rainfall amounts, what little falls on New Years Day, will be light. I would expect to see only a few locations with measurable rain and those should be less than a tenth of an inch.

Looking further into the future, the GFS maintains the trend of a relatively mild pattern for us with a trough over the western US keeping a southwesterly flow over us.

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Thanks for tuning into the Weather Xtreme Video. If you are local to us, be sure to catch my weather forecast at 6 and 10 pm on ABC 3340. I hope you have a chance to enjoy this mild day. Godspeed.

-Brian-

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Category: Alabama's Weather