Brutally Cold Weather Just Ahead

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The brutal cold weather that we’ve been talking about is getting set to start later today. The storm system will move briskly from the vicinity of Paducah, KY, northeastward to western New York by midnight. The upper trough will dig into the eastern half of the country today and tonight bringing the coldest air we’ve seen in at least two decades to much of the eastern half of the country. The front should enter Northwest Alabama in the 5 to 7 pm time frame and move rapidly eastward. The leading edge of the cold air should be approaching Auburn just before midnight.

There are numerous and varied winter weather, wind chill, and wind advisories in effect for much of Central and North Alabama. See the video for a dramatic look at the areas of the US covered by some sort of advisory.

Showers and rain are expected to occur this afternoon ahead of the front, but as soon as the front passes your location, temperatures will begin a rapid and steep drop to our low on Monday morning of 12 to 16 degrees. The rapid temperature change should result in precipitation changing over to freezing rain/sleet combination for a brief period and then to all snow. Snowfall amounts are not expected to be significant with a dusting to half an inch possible across much of Central Alabama as far south as about Clanton. I do not expect the icing to be significant enough to cause any widespread power outages, however, the cold will place a big demand on the power system, so isolated outages due to the demand as well as any weak trees/limbs that might bring down a line here or there especially with the gusty northwesterly wind.

An issue for people on the highways will be the potential for any wet roadways or bridges to freeze with the rapid drop in temperature. Fortunately ground temperatures remain up, however, exposed surfaces like bridges and overpasses could see icing as they chill down the quickest. The spotty nature of this icing makes travel even more dangerous.

The sun is expected to come out by tomorrow afternoon, but as powerful as the sun may be, it is going to have some tough going against the brutally cold air being transported into the eastern half of the country. Highs on Monday will only climb into the lower 20s and some spots across the northern third of Alabama may not get above 18 or 19 degrees.

With a clearing sky Monday night, nearly all of Central and North Alabama north of an east-west line through Clanton will drop into single numbers of lows with most in the range from 3 to 7 degrees. I fully expect to see some of the colder locations across northern Alabama to record lows below zero.

Keep in mind that with the wind, wind chill values will be at dangerous levels, so be sure to look after pets that typically live outside.

The deep trough moves off the Atlantic Coast on Tuesday and our pattern begins to moderate a bit. But Tuesday will still be quite cold with highs climbing into the middle 20s. Wednesday will dawn cold, but not quite as cold with lows in the range of 11 to 15 degrees. With a good supply of sun and the dampening of the upper flow, we should see highs recover into the lower and middle 40s on Wednesday.

The next short wave trough in our active flow pattern approaches late Wednesday and into Thursday bringing a chance of rain back into the forecast. Moisture will be somewhat limited along with the rapid eastward progression of the short wave, so the rain should not be particularly heavy. But rain chances will linger for Friday and Saturday as another disturbance moves across the Central US. This disturbance should bring another round of chilly weather and force the rain eastward during the day Saturday with hopefully a dry day for Sunday.

Peeking into voodoo country, there does not seem to be any significant let up in the overall cold pattern for the eastern half of the country with a well established long wave trough generally along and just east of the Mississippi River.

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I had a great time in Piedmont yesterday morning with the First Annual Polar Plunge. Special thanks to Piedmont Mayor Bill Baker and Keith Word for the invitation. The fund raising event garnered $3,300 for Venecia’s Foundation that supports families of cancer patients. James Spann will be back with the next edition of the Weather Xtreme Video on Monday morning. Stay warm and Godspeed.

-Brian-

Category: Alabama's Weather