Quick Forecast Update

Only going to do a bullets-point forecast this evening. Yesterday a member of my extended family suffered a stroke and is recuperating from a very frightening couple of days. The situation has knocked the wind out of me. This is not a paying gig, so we're only doing bullet points this time. 

It was mostly sunny in the Tennessee Valley today with a good southerly breeze. Even this morning, winds were gusting up to 20 miles per hour or more. The High in Cullman was 73 after a morning Low of 50. Jasper got up to 75 degrees after a morning Low of 39. Haleyville had a High of 73 and Low of 49. 

So things are quiet for now overall. Tomorrow we'll get up to about 75 degrees with clouds and winds on the increase. 

A cold front will push through here on Wednesday, and we'll have rain, gusty winds, and perhaps isolated thunderstorms, with a High near 70, Low near 60. 

The Storm Prediction Center has kept us in an outlook for only general thunderstorms, since the air looks like it will be way too stable for severe thunderstorms, and as discussed even last week on this blog, things only looked favorable for a low-end threat to begin with, synoptic setup just looked too messy.

Thursday looks like a mix of sun and clouds, brief break from the rain, High in mid-50's, Low near 30. 

Without splitting hairs and looking at any remaining model discrepancies, will just mention the basic idea that we'll have at least scattered and perhaps numerous showers coming back on Friday, with a High in the 50's and a Low near 40. 

Then Saturday any showers should definitely be more scattered in nature and we have a High back in the 60's, Low in upper 40's approximately.

And to be frank, this extended period still looks unsettled and a messy forecast, sort of unclear, where we have to fall back on probabilities without being able to give as much specific detail as we might like to. 

The High should get back to about 70 for Sunday and Monday. Lows in the 50's. Sunday the chance of rain is minimal, but it might be a lot like Thursday in the sense that clouds may hang around even if there is little or no rain. 

And then Monday the rain chances start to climb again, up to about 40-50% as another cold front approaches. That next front probably will not pass through the area until at least Tuesday of next week. But we could see at least some scattered rain ahead of it Monday of next week.

I did glance at the GFS and ECMWF latest runs. The weekend rain is a little clearer than it was between the two models, and I have a better idea of where to draw probability lines. After looking at it though, I'm not sure I'd rule out Monday for our next cold front arriving. Confidence is not high in the extended period this time, only for the basic forecast over the next three days. For the other four days, we are looking at general trends with this one. None of it is clear-cut. 

Our rainfall totals for this forecast period should average about one inch. 

And I would give you a link to the weather safety classes Nashville is holding, but they took it off their website and have not recently promoted it on the X-rated tweetybird site formerly known as Twitter. Which is the only social media even halfway worth keeping up with anymore. So if you haven't already signed up for one, just forget it. Nashville has issued a wind advisory:

The Huntsville office is holding off on one for now, which is why Lincoln, Moore, and Franklin Counties stick out like a sore thumb there. I'm glad some of our local broadcast meteorologists have made efforts to improve some of these weird potholes in communicating with the general public that people working for the government are powerless to do much about. At least this is not high-impact weather. It still frustrates me sometimes when such things happen during a winter storm or something like that. The map just looks so goofy here. Anyone can figure out that the winds will be similar in those three counties as in the surrounding counties. So it just looks strange. The County Warning/Forecast Areas look pretty arbitrary sometimes, but it is not as bad as a time back in the 1990's when the Huntsville office was actually shut down. And Birmingham had to try to issue warnings for all of North and Central Alabama. We've got it pretty good these days. The offices tend to coordinate well when the weather is high-impact. When somebody I know just survived major brain surgery and can talk clearly, I'm not going to gripe too much. Though the overall situation, topped off with some other things, has put me in a foul mood.