Wind, Rain, Snow, Cold

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As we have been saying in recent weeks… this pattern allows no dull moments in the weather office around here. Let me say up front I will don’t think we will have any travel issues due to snow along the I-20 corridor, including Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, and Anniston, although a dusting of snow is sure likely. Lets get down to business…

GRAVITY WAVE: Wow… we begin the day with a really nice pre-dawn rain mass moving through Alabama, and a gravity wave has formed on the back edge of that rain. The wave, seen nicely in hourly pressure plots, has been responsible for winds in the 35 to 45 mph range, and will move through East Alabama during the next hour or so. We have just received reports of damage in Chilton and Autauga counties from high winds.

Some spots have picked up almost one inch of rain this morning…. that is a good thing.

REST OF TODAY: Looks like we will be in a dry slot for several hours this morning, so there will be a break in the rain for a while, bit more showers should form this afternoon as the upper trough approaches. There is no threat of snow during the day today as critical thickness values remain northwest of Alabama.

TONIGHT: Cold air will move into Alabama tonight, and the rain will change to snow; initially in the Muscle Shoals area of Northwest Alabama. The rain/snow line will move southeast, and by midnight most of North Alabama will have snow.

Watch the Weather Xtreme video for all of the graphics associated with this discussion; the really big band of snow with this storm will be north of Alabama, in the general area from Little Rock to Nashville to Cincinnati to Buffalo.

Here in Alabama, the NAM shows the best chance of accumulating snow over the northwest corner of the state, and there is no doubt they will see the first snow flakes and will have the longest duration of snow. But, often in this kind of situation our best snow will come from convective bands on the back side of the surface low and under the cold core upper through, and in this case that will be over Northeast Alabama, over Jackson, Madison, Marshall, and DeKalb counties.

The bottom line is that one to two inches of snow on grassy areas is possible mainly along and north of U.S. 278 tonight, or north of a line from Hamilton to Cullman to Gadsden. A dusting is possible as far south as I-20.

Let me clearly point out that major travel problems are not expected tonight. The only issue will be some bridge icing over the Tennessee Valley after midnight and tomorrow morning. Roads will be only wet since the ground is relatively warm. And, I do not expect any bridge icing problems along the I-20 corridor.

I was a bit puzzled by the NWS Birmingham issuing a winter storm watch for their northern counties, but I checked their discussion, and it says “AN OUTSIDE CHANCE THAT WE COULD SEE ACCUMULATIONS APPROACH THE TWO INCH ADVISORY CRITERIA IN ISOLATED SPOTS. OUR GUT FEELING IS THAT WE WILL NOT…BUT THOUGHT IT PRUDENT TO AT LEAST GIVE A MORE CERTAIN HEADS UP.” I think we are all on the same page based on that.

REMEMBER: March snow events are very challenging, and all of this could change during the day, so stay tuned.

COLD SATURDAY: We probably won’t get out of the 30s tomorrow with an icy northwest wind. Snow flurries should end by midday, but the wind chill index will be below freezing much of the day. You will need to bundle up if you are going to be outside. We drop into the upper 20s by daybreak Sunday.

WARMER DAYS: A nice warming trend begins Sunday afternoon, with a high in the upper 50s. Then, we warm into the 60s by Monday and Tuesday of next week.

LONG RANGE: Oddly enough, the 06Z GFS has lost our Thursday storm system next week, but that is an outlier and I expect it to be back on the board in coming runs. We will continue to mention a chance of showers and strong storms Thursday; of course we can’t be too specific on that one until we get this ongoing system out of here.

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.

Needless to say, the blog will be updated often today, so stay tuned. I will be at Berry Middle School in Hoover, and Good Hope Elementary School in Cullman County today, so J.B. will be at the forecast desk. I might post a few Twitter updates; those show up on the blog sidebar, and you can follow them a variety of ways if you want (IM, cell phone text messages, etc). Twitter messages (called “tweets”) are very small, and we can post them from cell phones. Just another way of passing along information.

The next Weather Xtreme video will be here by 3:30 or so this afternoon!

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