Gray Start but Some Afternoon Sun

An all new edition of the ABC 33/40 Weather Xtreme video is available in the player on the right sidebar of the blog. You can subscribe to the Weather Xtreme video on iTunes by clicking here.

The average low for the first of March is 42 and much of Central Alabama is starting the day a bit above this with a deck of clouds in place and temperatures running in the mid and upper 40s after some light overnight rain. Radar still shows a few sprinkles especially across eastern Alabama. The clouds should begin to develop some breaks by late morning, so we should see some sunshine peeking through the clouds for the afternoon as highs climb into the 60s.

A front draped across the Central US from Texas to the eastern Great Lakes is producing a messy weather situation for that area with winter weather warnings, advisories, and watches from a large swath of the country from Amarillo to Baltimore. Fortunately, Central Alabama is on the south – and warm side – of this messy pattern.

A strong low latitude short wave moves out of the Southern Rockies on Sunday quickly reaching the East Coast by Monday afternoon. This should bring a period of wet weather to Central Alabama from Sunday night into Monday. But the fast movement of the upper disturbance should bring a relatively quick end to the precipitation on Monday afternoon. Unfortunately, it is likely to bring another one of those days where the high for the day occurs in the very early morning hours and temperatures during the afternoon will be steady or falling with the morning low around 50 but afternoon temperatures only in the 40s.

We dry out Tuesday and Wednesday, but the overall flow pattern aloft remains progressive, so we hardly catch our breath before the next system begins to develop Wednesday as a substantial trough begins to dig its way into the Lower Mississippi River Valley. The GFS depicts a closed low at 500 millibars at noon on Thursday centered near Lake Charles, LA. This will generate a surface low in the Gulf of Mexico late Wednesday and Thursday which will move along the Gulf Coast and be near Appalachicola, FL, around noon Thursday. Based on the current model run and model soundings, the lower portion of the atmosphere is expected to stay above freezing from the ground up to about 750 millibars. This should be a sufficiently thick warm layer to keep the precipitation in the form of a cold rain. But, and there is always a ‘but’ in these situations, this is also the kind of set up which can result in pulling in a low, relatively thin, layer of cold air from the north and east, so while winter precipitation is not in the forecast now, we’ll need to maintain a close watch on the evolution of the system so we don’t get any surprises. Current guidance suggests another raw kind of day with temperatures in the 40s and lower 50s with a cold rain.

And the current models are in excellent agreement on this scenario. The ECMWF shows a surface pattern with thickness values very similar to the GFS. The ECMWF is a bit stronger on the surface low strength, but the positioning is nearly identical in both models.

The closed low at 500 millibars moves into the Southeast Atlantic on Friday, paving the way for improving weather and a reasonably nice weekend for Central Alabama.

Looking out into voodoo country, the main push of cold air is across the Mid-Atlantic Coast area on the 10th of March, but there is no let up in the continuing parade of upper level disturbances with one around the 14th and yet another around the 16th. So March is shaping up to be just as busy as January and February.

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…

We have Storm Alert Xtreme set for Wednesday, March 5th, at 6:30 pm at the Pelham Civic Complex located in northern Shelby County just off Interstate 65 and exit 246. The focus for this event will be basic storm spotter training, so if you have an interest in weather and in being a storm spotter, be sure to make plans to attend this event. The program will be about two hours and we should be finished by 9 pm or so. I’ll have the next weather discussion posted her by 8 or so on Sunday morning. Enjoy the day and Godspeed.

-Brian-

Category: Alabama's Weather