Potential Ice Problems Tonight

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Plenty to discuss this afternoon… lets get right to it…

TONIGHT/TOMORROW: The lowest 10,000 feet is very, very dry across Alabama this afternoon, with surface dewpoints in the single digits. As the precipitation begins tonight, evaporative cooling will kick in, and should be significant. Bottom line is that we don’t see much reason to change our thinking on tonight’s weather. Here are the headlines:

*The greatest chance of icy travel (mainly bridge icing) will be along and north of a line from Millport to Birmingham to Roanoke. Freezing rain and sleet is likely along and about 40 miles north of that line, and with the cold infrastructure bridges will become icy rather quickly.

*The Birmingham metro is right on the borderline. Once again, it could be a case where Hoover has a cold rain and 34 degrees, and Gardendale has icy bridges and 31. And, of course, the line that separate a cold rain and freezing rain will not be in a straight line.

*There should be some snow at the onset of the precipitation along and north of U.S. 278. There is some chance snow could accumulate in this region… one inch is possible, maybe even two inches in spots over Northeast Alabama. The best chance the two inch amounts will be over Jackson and DeKalb Counties.

*All of the precipitation will change over to a cold rain by mid-morning tomorrow as slightly warmer air moves northward. This will be a relatively short-term issue; most of the travel problems will come from about 10:00 p.m. through 8:00 a.m.

FRIDAY: Looks mostly cloudy and chilly as we are in between waves.

THE WEEKEND: The idea of some wintry precipitation over the weekend across Central Alabama is not off the table. Models have waffled northward again on the 12Z runs; but I won’t be confident in any solution until we get the system tomorrow on to the east. The computer models will be clueless to some of the energy in the southern stream, on the far southern periphery of the Arctic air.

The model MOS (model output statistic) numbers for the weekend are horrible; we should have shallow cold air in place on Saturday with a high in the 30s; Sunday and Monday will be colder. We might have a hard time getting out of the 20s on Monday.

NEXT WEEK: The weather stays cold, and the idea of another winter storm threat for parts of the southern U.S. at mid-week is still on the table. Way to early to be specific.

We will keep the blog updated with fresh information tonight and tomorrow, come back often for the latest. Like thunderstorms, with winter storm threats here in Alabama expect the unexpected.

STORM ALERT 2007: Travel will be fine tomorrow night for Storm Alert 2007; our first stop will be in Tuscaloosa at Shelton State Community College. He expect a large crowd; the doors open at 5:00, and the show will begin at 7:00. We have some great Alabama weather stories and great prizes to give away. I understand we will have 20 NOAA Weather Radio receivers to give away this year at each stop!

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I was invited to be on the Larry King show on CNN tonight, but had to turn them down. Simply too much going here with the winter storm issue and final preps for Storm Alert 2007. Maybe next time! Again, stay tuned here for frequent updates…

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