Cold Air Knocking on the Door

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Temperature forecasting has been a real challenge overnight with readings in the 40s last night around 10 pm but actually climbing for much of the night so that values were into the lower 60s this morning. What a warm start to the day, a day of transition. The cold front was located just across the line in Mississippi early this morning and will be blasting across Alabama during the day today. The front should be out of the state by early afternoon, roughly between about noon and 3 pm. This means we actually could see some sunshine late this afternoon especially from the Birmingham area westward. And temperatures should drop into the 50s behind the front, falling somewhat as cold air advects into the area.

As I’ve trying to say all week, there is very little rain with this system. The radar just before 7 am showed 4 or 5 small showers in the Tennessee Valley and 3 showers in Mississippi southwest of Columbus. Very few of us will be seeing rain as these isolated showers move quickly through the state just ahead of the cold front. Some isolated spots might see as much as a tenth of an inch but most of the isolated spots that do get rain will get less than 5 hundredths of an inch.

By Monday morning we should be into the upper 20s. With good cold air advection I expect to see highs Monday reach only the mid 40s, that’s about 15 degrees colder than we have early this morning! Cold air advection begins to wane Tuesday, however, when you add in good radiational cooling I expect Tuesday morning to the coldest morning in some time with lows around 20. That means that some of those typically colder spots will drop into the teens. But then as the deep trough slow moves off the East Coast, we should begin a slow warm up today the end of the week as the overall pattern slowly flattens. That should put us back to near 60 by Friday.

A new system coming out the West brings rain chances to the area on Saturday and another round of cold weather for Sunday, a week from today. So no lack of action in the weather pattern right now.

The long range GFS suggests another fairly quick warm up after the next round of cold weather as the overall weather pattern dampens once again.

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Happy New Year and thanks for staying tuned to the Weather Xtreme Video. I will be handling the morning weather duties at 3340 on Monday morning, so look for the next Weather Xtreme Video around 9 am or a little after. James Spann should be back from vacation on Tuesday morning. Godspeed.

-Brian-

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Category: Alabama's Weather