Tuesday (High 57, Low 44): Becoming mostly sunny. Cool and breezy.
Wednesday (High 64, Low 37): Partly cloudy. Cool and breezy.
Thanksgiving (High 63, Low 49): Rain likely, especially in the early morning. A few thunderstorms are possible and could become severe where they form.
Friday (High 45, Low 32): Sunny with stark-raving mad shoppers likely indoors and covering up the roadways in their blazing-fast vehicles, giving the Little Old Lady from Pasadena a run for her money, even if they are in Alabama or Tennessee and far away from Pasadena . . . and even if that little old lady is probably long dead by now anyway.
Saturday (High 46, Low 23): Mostly sunny and really cold.
Sunday (High 44, Low 26): Mostly sunny and somehow seeming like it's December already.
Monday (High 40, Low 20): Sunny and the kind of cold that makes you want to belt out "If We Make It Through December" right along with Merle Haggard.
Skies have ranged from partly cloudy to overcast in the Tennessee Valley today. The High in Cullman was 72, and the Low this morning was 48. That warmup was only a one-day thing though, not going to last.
And it's been breezy today, winds out of the South/Southwest ahead of this cold front coming in tonight.
Already got some light showers moving through Middle Tennessee and far Northwest Alabama this evening at 4:30 PM CST.
High pressure quickly takes over again tomorrow, and clouds will be decreasing, we'll become mostly sunny while there is still daylight. We'll still have a northerly breeze. High should get to about 57-58.
And then Wednesday sure looks interesting across the county considering how many people will be travelling. Rain will become possible again in much of the Southeast, Tennessee Valley, Mississippi Valley, all the way to the Mid-Atlantic region, rain and thunderstorms possible associated with a warm front out ahead of a cold front. Behind that cold front and to the North, mixed wintry precipitation is possible from New England through the upper Ohio Valley, snow up around the Great Lakes, more mixed wintry precip through the Midwest, Northern Plains, back into places like Utah. Snow is possible in Colorado and Southern Wyoming and may be heavy at times. And more snow in Montana and Northern Idaho. So if you're driving through one of the clear zones, count yourself lucky.
It actually looks fine around here during the day and most of the night, just partly cloudy skies and breezy conditions ahead of yet another front. High should be in about the 63-65 range, the Low about 36-38 range.
Of course Thanksgiving is the day that has had everyone's attention. The latest run of the GFS here shows a track of the surface Low that would favor just a cool, rainy day around here with probably not even much thunder.
The system is now within the range of the NAM, though out at 72 hours, it does tend to lose its reliability, since is it a mesoscale model, not a global one. It's best out to about 60 hours focused on North America. But still worth taking a look at. And this is not a severe weather look for us either.
The ECMWF shows the rain moving through here faster than the other models, but the track of the surface Low is far to our Northeast, like the NAM is showing. None of these models show a scenario that looks classic for any organized severe weather around here at this time of the year. The most we might have to worry about, if we can trust this latest guidance, is a marginal threat for a few isolated thunderstorms that could reach severe limits. Even that, I am starting to question, like we may not even see a whole lot of thunder with this, just a cool rain for most of us. And we might get by without any stronger storms at all.
But before we get too comfortable assuming that, it's worth mentioning that there is a short window of time where in the wee hours of late Wednesday night/Thursday morning, the GFS is showing enough of a combination of unstable air and wind shear to pay attention to.
A forecast sounding in Cullman County at that time shows marginally unstable air, whether you're looking at CAPE, dewpoint temperature, or Lifted Index. And the wind shear is looking to be fairly impressive, not so high considering the time of year, but still enough to support a damaging wind potential and also a chance of an isolated tornado or two in our region. And we could see some marginally severe hail in any storms that become severe. So the severe weather threat is looking low with this, but it is not looking like zero. It is a really close call, and it is coming at the time of a holiday. A lot of people will be on the road or just getting off the road and spending time with family, getting ready to roast some turkey and other yummies. So this is worth taking seriously even though the overall risk is looking low. I especially notice it's projecting the Storm Relative Helicity to be about 200 m^2/s^2 down at the lowest kilometer of the atmosphere. That's where we'd have to watch for a few storms trying to rotate, sustain a rotating updraft for at least a few minutes, even though the unstable air/fuel for the storms looks like it will be pretty weak.
And it'll be interesting to see what the NAM does with this tomorrow and then the Convection-Allowing Models, how they forecast the convective parameters. I glanced at the SREF and did not see anything noteworthy. Ditto with the NAM for now. It is not showing anything even mildly concerning like the GFS is. The only combination of instability/wind shear the NAM is currently showing is down in far Southern Alabama and down around the Gulf Coast.
So Thanksgiving looks rainy, especially during the early morning hours, a lot of the rain (and maybe some storms) coming in during the dark hours of the morning, between midnight and daybreak. And we do have a low risk of a few thunderstorms that could become severe. I'm going to mention that in the forecast above, even though the risk is low, just because of how high-impact it could be if even one or two spots were to get a damaging storm with this timing. People are not likely to be prepared for it. So I'm going to mention it in the forecast as a course of least regret. And then if it's just rain, that's fine. But there is just enough risk of a severe thunderstorm or two in the region with this setup, so that I don't trust it. The High should be in the mid-60's and the Low around 50. I think the current model guidance keeping us around 60 degrees or in the upper 50's is underestimating it. Even if the "High" comes early in the morning because of the weird timing and setup of this system, I think a lot of us will be in the lower-to-mid-60's for part of the day, when the air will be just unstable enough for there to be a concern for isolated stronger storms, might even become severe.
Black Friday looks sunny but cold, starting the day around freezing, only warming to the mid-40's. It will be the coldest air so far this season, basically winter conditions.
Of course a lot of people will be inside shopping, but that might be more dangerous than the cold, depending on the people around you. I think of that old Twilight Zone episode about the drunk Santa Claus where he goes on a rant about how Christmas was supposed to be about more than pushing people out of the way. Apparently things haven't changed much since the days before they even had color TV. Except you can see internet videos of the chaos. And maybe that has calmed it down some. Because that's not something most people want to "go viral" for. If you do choose to run somebody over with a buggy, please do it for something really worth it, like a limited edition Oscar the Grouch figure that yells "SCRAM!" even more convincingly than the grumpiest guy in your family. And maybe it comes with a complimentary free garbage can. I might run somebody down in the aisles for that. If I actually went shopping that day. Might as well make it fun.
But not the little old ladies . . . please leave them alone . . . let them shop for their grandkids in peace . . . I beseech you, if you are reading this . . . don't even run down an old lady for a Tickle Me Elmo . . . or a lifelike replica of Sofia Vergara . . . or The Rock for that matter. I can't get over how this young Miss Thang was fighting a little old lady over the last package of toilet paper during the covid outbreak a few years ago. That video sticks in my memory. Pretty sure a young man stepped in and made sure the old lady had something better to wipe with than the old Sears catalog. But please . . . civility. Oh . . . why do I bother . . . maybe because it's just fun to rant and rave against a holiday that for the most part, lost all its meaning for me many years ago. There were a couple of awesome people in my family tree who had a country store and invited everyone there for Thanksgiving every year. Until an 18-wheeler ran in there and forced them to move, building was no longer safe. Plus our family just disintegrated more and more over the years. And lest anybody out there feel sympathy and think of saying a prayer for what's left of the family I come from, don't waste your breath or even your sympathies. It truly is as lost a cause as Franklin Graham's attempts to get Donald Trump to cut back on his swearing.
Damn it.
So anyway, back to the weather . . . we are going to be absolutely frigid on Saturday morning, behind this front, great radiational cooling, Low down in the 20's, maybe lower 20's for some spots, especially on the Tennessee side. And then we'll warm to the mid-to-upper-40's in the afternoon with mostly sunny skies.
Sunday is actually the first day of December, and in terms of meteorology, the first day of the Winter season. The solstice is later in the month, but that's astronomy, not meteorology. And it will feel like winter. We actually have a reinforcing dry cold front late Saturday into Sunday which will give us a High in the lower 40's, Low in the upper 20's.
And then Monday skies stay clear but starting the day near 20 degrees and only warming to about 40.
I usually don't give fashion advice on here, but peeps are gonna' need to wear a coat in this extended period.
Rainfall totals will average between a half-inch and one inch for this forecast period.
Wherever you're spending Thanksgiving, just make sure that if a Severe Thunderstorm Warning is issued, you can move to a small room (or hallway) without windows, on the lowest floor of a sturdy house. It is not a good idea to try to ride out severe thunderstorm winds in a mobile home, especially if there are trees around.
I learned my lesson trying to celebrate the holiday again last year, spent a great day with some of the family remnants and some of their friends, then went to an awesome concert on Black Friday, first real concert in many years . . . and wound up with covid, which I gave to a girl in my family who gets sick easily and to my brother. And I barely had any energy for a good month or two after the fever went away. So Oscar the Grouch had the right idea about these depressing holidays. If I post anything in that time frame, I guess I'll just try to find the funniest videos of people running each other over for the cutest new LOL dolls. I can't believe those things even exist, but you know . . . in nonsense is strength. It's the new national anthem, since the old one was too long and had too many punctuation marks.
God bless America.
And . . . scram.
Be excellent to each other. Love thy neighbor as thyself.
And party on, dudes . . .
Nah . . . just . . . scram.
Bah humbug.
And nobody reads my Spanish forecasts, so you won't see one this time.
Ay Caramba!
Started to mention rain/storms late Wednesday night, but it's really Thursday morning, even though it's still dark. If people are really that ignorant and don't even care to read down this far for all the other stuff, then they can just stay confused and think it was a bad forecast. I'm tired of tryin'.
And I'm so on the fence about Thursday's temperatures and strong storm potential still. All this rambling apparently didn't help anything.
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