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Stuck in Warm/Wet Pattern

| January 10, 2013 @ 7:07 am

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Right now the weather pattern is very slow to change, and we are stuck on the warm and wet side of that pattern. And the first tornado watch of 2013 has been issued for parts of Louisiana and a small section of Southwest Mississippi. Never a dull moment in the weather office.

The closed low that we have been watching for the last several days is moving northward across Texas and should eject north-northeastward to the Ohio River Valley as it slowly weakens. But the Bermuda ridge located along the East Coast of the US is not budging! The result is that the Southeast US remains under a strong southwesterly flow pattern brining warmth and moisture to the area from the Pacific and the western Gulf of Mexico.

As the closed low ejects today, there is a risk of severe storms with isolated tornadoes primarily over Southeast Louisiana where shear values will be the greatest. Marginal conditions supportive of severe storms may extend northward to the Missouri Bootheel area, but that depends on how far northward the 60-degree dew points will surge. With the fast motion of the upper low, severe weather potential will decrease fairly quickly as the low ejects north-northeastward tonight and early Friday with no areas of severe weather potential outlined for Days 2 to 3.

Without something to push the frontal boundary further southward and southeastward, we will stay in and near the narrow corridor of moisture, so rain and showers will be possible for the next 5 to 6 days as small upper level impulses come out of the southwestern US. Rest assured that we are not looking at continuous rain for the next 5 days, but rain chances will remain in the forecast until we can see the pattern shift enough to finally push that trough anchored over the Southwest US eastward. And the current model guidance suggests that won’t happen until next Thursday. So keep the umbrella handy, but don’t put the winter coats back into storage just yet.

Looking further into the future, the GFS is suggesting the pattern will change around the 20th as we see the long wave trough position over the eastern half of the US. And around the 25th, a strong short wave moving through the long wave trough presents a wet scenario with potential for some winter weather just to our north. No, I’m not jumping out on that limb – after all, this is way out in voodoo country. But the pattern does suggest a winter storm event from West Tennessee to Ohio. So we’ll see how that plays out.

And you can follow news and weather updates from ABC 33/40 on Twitter here. Stay in the know by following the whole gang – here’s the list…

James Spann Charles Daniel Ashley Brand
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James Spann received the American Meteorological Society’s Award for Broadcast Meteorology at a banquet in Austin, TX, held in conjunction with the AMS annual meeting. Certainly congratulate him for an honor well deserved! I believe he plans to post an afternoon Weather Xtreme Video by 4 pm or so. I’m glad that I could fill in for him, so he could attend the AMS meeting to receive the award. Enjoy the day and Godspeed.

-Brian-

Category: Alabama's Weather

About the Author ()

Brian Peters is one of the television meteorologists at ABC3340 in Birmingham and a retired NWS Warning Coordination Meteorologist. He handles the weekend Weather Xtreme Videos and forecast discussion and is the Webmaster for the popular WeatherBrains podcast.

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