A Couple Sunny Days, Rain and a Few Storms Sunday, Clear and Cold Next Week

Today (High 60): Rain ending by late morning, becoming mostly sunny by afternoon. Staying cool and breezy.

Tonight (Low 35): Mostly clear skies. Patchy frost possible by daybreak.

Tomorrow (High 59): Mostly sunny during the day with patchy frost possible in the morning. Later at night, a few scattered showers may move in.

Sunday (High 69, Low 52): Rain and thunderstorms likely, with hail and gusty winds possible at times. An isolated strong thunderstorm is possible, but the risk of any storms becoming severe is low. 

Monday (High 52, Low 38): Mostly sunny. Turning colder.

Tuesday (High 51, Low 32): Sunny - widespread frost possible in morning.

Wednesday (High 61, Low 29): Sunny - widespread frost or even a hard freeze possible in the morning.

Thursday (High 68, Low 41): Partly to mostly sunny.

At 4 AM we have light rain and fog in Cullman, bringing the visibility down to 3 miles. The temperature and dewpoint are both 54, 100% relative humidity. Winds are from the southwest at 3 mph. The pressure is 29.99 inches and steady.

 

The mass of rain continues to work its way through our area and may last until late morning. Have had some thunderstorms down in South Alabama, also into South Georgia and Mississippi, back into parts of Louisiana. The air is cooler and stabler up here. 

That front will be passing through our region today, our first shot of some cold air. The real thing will come next week. 

On the North side of this front the precipitation starts to become a wintry mix. And from parts of New England back through the Great Lakes into the Dakotas and the Pacific Northwest, they have snow again. Some wintry mix extends down into the Rocky Mountains and even into Northern California. Southern California has a threat for strong thunderstorms today. Fair weather predominates much of the Desert Southwest, the Great Plains, and the Midwest. 

We should see a High near 60 today, overall more sun than clouds. The rain and clouds should start to break up by late morning into midday. It will stay breezy, and winds will shift around to the North/Northwest.

Tomorrow we could see patchy frost in the morning with a Low near 35, and then warm to about 59 degrees in the afternoon for the High. Winds should be light, and we'll see some clouds come back. In fact some of our rain may start tomorrow night, though it is expected to be scattered, with the more widespread rain holding off until Sunday morning. 

The Storm Prediction Center has included much of North Alabama in a marginal 5% risk for isolated severe thunderstorms on Sunday. Which is why I ended up making another post. To update my forecast from yesterday evening and allow for this isolated strong storm potential.

Even during peak heating hours, the SREF is showing instability struggling to even reach marginal values over Northern Alabama. Actually it is struggling even in Central Alabama, is not until you get down to South Alabama that it starts to look a little concerning.

The NAM shows a slightly higher potential for something trying to fire up this far North, but not by much.

Taking a forecast sounding up near Decatur, the NAM is showing only a marginal chance for an isolated severe thunderstorm or two. Remember, severe means producing large hail of at least quarter-size or winds of 50 knots (58 mph) or greater. And that is what the SPC outlooked for North Alabama, was the lowest level threat they can issue, marginal risk. 

One thing that may keep the severe storm threat very low is this looking like it will be a messy cluster of storms for the most part. However, in any breaks where the air has time to destabilize a little when it is not raining, could not rule out a supercell thunderstorm or two developing. This environment does not really favor long-lived supercells, but they could still pack a punch even if they do their thing in a short time before getting absorbed in the larger mass of rain and storms. 

The risk for more organized severe thunderstorms is over the Southern half of Alabama back into adjacent parts of Mississippi and Georgia. Up here in North Alabama, the chance of a storm becoming severe is very low. They are just letting you know that even though it is a low probability, it could happen somewhere within this broad area of the marginal risk. Once you get up into the Tennessee counties, the severe risk is just about nil, with only general rain and thunderstorms expected.

Should see a High near 69, Low near 50 for Sunday. 

If you were to get a severe thunderstorm warning, best thing to do is stay inside your house, away from windows or anything electrical until the storm passes. It is better if you can be in a sturdy house rather than a mobile home, to be on the safe side, and also if you live in a place with more than one floor, better if you are on one of the lowest floors instead of up on the top floor, especially if you've got trees around. 

For Monday we'll start the day in the upper 30's and warm to the lower 50's by afternoon under mostly sunny skies.

Then that high pressure behind the front brings us some seriously cold air Tuesday morning, with widespread frost possible and maybe even a freeze. We should start the day right around freezing and once again only warm into lower 50's.

Sunny skies on Wednesday and warming to about 60 in afternoon, but another cold morning with widespread frost likely and possibly a freeze, Low around 30 or maybe even dipping into upper 20's.

Looks like we stay mostly sunny on Thursday, next rain chances will probably wait until the weekend, at least until Friday anyway. High in upper 60's and Low rebounding quite a bit into upper 40's as the upper-level winds shift and allow some warmer, more moist air to start to come back into the region. 

Looks like we will see an average of about another inch of rainfall from this system on Sunday. A few spots may see closer to an inch and a half, especially up along the AL/TN state line or in Northeast Alabama.

Next SKYWARN class is 6 PM Tuesday at the Huntsville Jaycee's Building. The National Weather Service puts these on during severe weather season, and they are always free to anyone who has an interest in taking one. We also "spring forward" for Daylight Savings Time this weekend, Saturday night or technically early Sunday morning. Good time to change batteries in a weather radio or any other important gadgets.