Driving Down The Winter Highway

The Tuesday morning edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme video is available in the player below, and on iTunes:

First off this morning… we have had to put all comments on “moderation”. This means someone will look at it before it is posted. During the last 24 hours, we have had to delete posts with profanity, racial slurs, personal attacks, and rambling messages nothing short of insanity. The sad part about this is that 90 percent of comments are excellent. So, we welcome your comments; they just won’t show up as soon as you post them. Might be a few minutes; might be over an hour. We are running 18 hour days here, and we will do the best we can to get the comments through. Sad we are having to do this; you might expect this kind of stuff on a political or sports blog… but one about weather????? Wow.

I stand by the statements I have made here in recent weeks:

*Much of the nation will be very cold in the next week or so; for some the coldest air in the last 10 years, and perhaps in some cases the past 20 years.

*There will be winter storm threats across parts of the Deep South on the southern periphery of the Arctic air.

To me, that is the easy part. Nailing down the details is very hard, and computer models and humans are prone to great error. We now have three systems on the table in the next 7 days… but I take them one at a time…

SYSTEM ONE: Our system rolling in here late tomorrow night and Thursday will bring freezing rain, sleet, and snow to parts of the southern U.S. Models have trended a little warmer, which is great news for the I-20 corridor. Looks like any freezing rain early Thursday morning will be mainly along and north of U.S. 278; although the HPC ice outlook does expected as far south as Anniston in their latest graphic. I am not sure Anniston will have any problems, I still like U.S. 278 as the threat line, which runs in East Alabama from Gadsden over to Piedmont. We still have to watch for evaporative cooling with the low dewpoints/wet bulbs… that can always offer some surprises.

The window for freezing rain will be fairly narrow as WAA kicks in during the day (warm air advection). Thursday will feature a cold rain much of the day; maybe even some thunder down in South Alabama where there will be some instability. The rain should end from west to east Thursday night.

Friday will be a dry but chilly day. Maybe some decent peeks of sun during the day as the lead system rolls off to the northeast. Much colder air invades the state on Saturday; we believe the GFS is too warm with a high of 42; for now we have a high of 32 on Saturday with an icy north wind. There could be a few flurries as the colder air arrives, but the air will be fairly dry in the low levels.

SYSTEM TWO: The European first picked up on this yesterday, and now the GFS is on board. The Canadian is REALLY on board (the GEMS model). Another storm forms in the Gulf of Mexico Saturday night, which brings precipitation into the Deep South Saturday night into Sunday. In keeping with my “take em one at a time: policy, I sure don’t want to get too specific on this. This is a great example of what CAN happen with this pattern, and if the Canadian verifies there will be lots of snow across the Deep South. The GFS is not nearly as aggressive, and is farther to the south with the moisture fields. I will simply introduce a chance of “rain or snow”, and we will deal with this one more specifically in coming days.

Following system two on Sunday, the GFS dumps pure Arctic air in here on Monday and Tuesday. On Monday we might remain below freezing all day. Sure looks cold.

SYSTEM THREE: And, a third system is on the table for the middle of next week. Won’t even get into this at this time.

WEATHER BRAINS: A new edition of our weekly 30 minute netcast will be posted here shortly…

STORM ALERT 2007: We kick off this year’s weather tour across Alabama Thursday night in Tuscaloosa… we will be at Shelton State Community College at 7:00; we have some amazing Alabama weather stories, and we will have some wonderful prizes to give away. Get there early for a good seat!

I will be on the road this morning to Jasper, speaking to the kids at Memorial Park Elementary School… I will be back in the office by early afternoon and the next Weather Xtreme video will be posted by 3:30 this afternoon!

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