Clouds Hang In – Drizzle for the AM

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Radar this morning showed only a few light showers occurring across the East Central Alabama counties, and those will be moving out by 8 am or so. But the clouds will be hanging around, so you may experience some light drizzle or mist until early afternoon, and I don’t expect to see much sunshine today. We should see some sunshine on Tuesday.

The upper air pattern remains somewhat complex as a long wave trough is carved out across the eastern half of the US while a closed low develops over the Four Corners area of the Southwest US. This combination of features helps to keep the bulk of the cold air north of us, but it does gradually get cooler as we head to the 31st and 1st. Highs will be in the 50s lowering to around 50 by the 1st. Morning lows will also show a gradual downward trend with lows by the 31st and 1st dipping back into the upper 20s. This is still not especially cold for this time of year when the 30-year average highs are around 54 and the lows around 34, but we do stay just below those values.

The closed low in the Four Corners area will begin to kick eastward on January 2nd. Much like this last system, it will tap into moisture coming out of the Pacific, so rain becomes likely once again by the afternoon of January 2nd. As that closed low opens up and ejects across the eastern US, we’ll stay wet through the 3rd with the rain coming to an end on the fourth. Since I do not expect to see any rain until 2015, it looks like Birmingham will end 2014 about 4 inches below our annual average precipitation with just under 50 inches of rainfall.

The colder air again stays to our north, so there is no sign of any extremely cold weather in the near future.

Looking out into voodoo country, the pattern remains fairly active with another trough to deal with around the 6th/7th of January. After that the overall upper air pattern looks fairly mild for the Southeast US with a nearly zonal flow pattern that should keep any extreme weather at bay.

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So excited to be heading to Pasadena, CA, this morning to attend the Rose Bowl game between the Florida State Seminoles and the Oregon Ducks. My tickets are in the end zone, so if you’re watching the game on January the 1st, look for me. I suspect I’ll be one of the few wearing a Florida State 2013 National Champion t-shirt. With the two hours time difference, don’t look for the Weather Xtreme Video to be posted very early. Have a great day, and Godspeed.

-Brian-

Category: Alabama's Weather