FORECAST:
Friday (High 58, Low 28): Mostly sunny during the day. Rain likely at night.
Saturday (High 57, Low 44): Breezy with rain showers likely. Snow flurries possible in the evening/night hours, but accumulation is not expected.
Sunday (High 35, Low 26): Partly to mostly sunny. Breezy and very cold.
EXTENDED OUTLOOK:
Monday (High 27, Low 13): Mostly sunny.
Tuesday (High 30, Low 15): Partly cloudy with a 30% chance of snow.
Wednesday (High 33, Low 16): Mostly sunny.
Thursday (High 40, Low 21): Partly cloudy.
PRONÓSTICO:
Viernes (Máxima 58, Mínima 28): Mayormente soleado durante el día. Probabilidad de lluvia por la noche.
Sábado (Máxima 57, Mínima 44): Ventoso con probabilidad de lluvias. Posibles nevadas por la tarde/noche, pero no se espera acumulación.
Domingo (Máxima 35, Mínima 26): Parcialmente a mayormente soleado. Ventoso y muy frío.
PERSPECTIVA EXTENDIDA:
Lunes (Máxima 27, Mínima 13): Mayormente soleado.
Martes (Máxima 30, Mínima 15): Parcialmente nublado con un 30 % de probabilidad de nieve.
Miércoles (Máxima 33, Mínima 16): Mayormente soleado.
Jueves (Máxima 40, Mínima 21): Parcialmente nublado.
NOTES:
It is very important to make sure your home and family are prepared for this 2-3 day stretch we'll have next week staying below freezing, regardless of whether we see any snow or not. So here are some reminders from NOAA/the NWS that are a lot more sensible than storming the grocery stores for milk, bread, or beer.
The National Weather Service in Birmingham has put together an excellent page detailing last week's snow/ice event. And I'd especially like to thank them for including North Alabama in it, counties that are technically outside their area of responsibility these days. Thanks for keeping us in mind and making the map complete. They used to cover all of North Alabama, think it was in the 90's, when there was no office in Huntsville for many years. So they didn't have to include us, but they did, like they would have done in the old days. And it is appreciated.
A tornado track has been found at Vina from the night of January 5.
And Severe Weather Awareness Day will be February 22 this year at Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville. Thanks to NWS Nashville for putting that on yearly. This is something you need to register for in advance. Looks like a great event for people who live up that way. The primary severe weather season for North Alabama and Southern Middle Tennessee is in March, April, and May. We typically have our secondary peak in November. But as we all know, no month of the year is really immune. It's usually March and April that end up being the worst. We have some of the most active, interesting weather of anywhere in the world, for better or worse.
It was a sunny, rather breezy day in the Tennessee Valley. The High in Cullman was 57 after a morning Low of 27. Jasper had a High of 61 and Low of 23. Haleyville saw a High of 57 and Low of 25.
Elsewhere around the area, Fort Payne had a High of 57 and a Low of 20. Decatur had a High of 58 and Low of 25. Huntsville saw a High of 57 and Low of 26. Muscle Shoals had a High of 59 and Low of 27. Tupelo appears to have had a High of 61, but due to a technical glitch from that reporting site, it is impossible to determine their Low for today. The lowest it shows is 31 degrees, but several hours are missing. Memphis had a High of 57 and Low of 34. Nashville saw a High of 55 and Low of 28.
We have high pressure in place at the surface, centered mainly out in Texas and Louisiana, strong Northwest wind flow aloft at about 18,000 feet/500 millibars. Which keeps us dry for the time being. But we do have changes on the way.
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Tomorrow does look like more of the same, mostly sunny skies, winds should have died down though. High should be up around 57-58 again, our Low tonight about 28-29 by daybreak anyway. A few places could see freezing fog, but I think it'll be pretty isolated if it occurs.
Then Friday night into Saturday, we have a Low pressure system moving across the Southern part of the region, Southeast region, and a cold front pushing in from the Northwest. Rain showers are likely, although instability is looking too weak for many, if any, thunderstorms. High will be in the upper 50's, the Low in the lower, maybe mid-40's. And it'll be breezy with this. Could see a few snow flurries on the back side of this Saturday evening/night if the lingering moisture and the cold air are in sync, but even if so, that would likely be confined to far North Alabama and up across the Tennessee state line. And it doesn't look like a favorable scenario for anything to accumulate. Flurries are just pretty to look at if you get them.
The big news is what is coming on the back side of that cold front on Sunday. This will begin a period of extreme cold, at least by our standards. We are not used to this, and it will be dangerous. We had some issues like this last Winter, I remember.
Sunday looks partly to mostly sunny and still breezy, the High in the mid-30's, the Low in the mid-to-upper-20's. But this is only the beginning . . .
On Monday, which is Martin Luther King Day as well as Inauguration Day, that Arctic airmass is going to build into the Southeast region with a vengeance. We will start the day in the lower 10's and only warm to the upper 20's for the afternoon High. And even though the winds won't be as breezy as the past two days, the wind chill factor could easily make it feel like it's in the single digits in the morning hours, which is not only brutally cold, but dangerous. People (and pets) can freeze to death or at least suffer hypothermia if they're out in this kind of cold too long. Pipes can burst. I'll tell you right now, I'll be taking precautions to keep my pipes from bursting. Everybody should. But the main thing is making sure everybody can stay warm, stay safe, because we don't have this in Alabama all the time. It's unusual, a once-in-a-while thing for us. Even for Tennessee, at least the Southern parts of the state, you don't see this every day. Because this below-freezing temperature trend will last more than one day.
Tuesday is when the "fun" starts for forecasting. The GFS is showing a Low pressure system moving through the Gulf but the precipitation staying well to our South, has us dry.
Having some trouble getting the ECMWF graphics to load at the moment, so will skip ahead to the GEM, which by Tuesday evening, shows moisture overspreading the region, including North Alabama. This would mean snow.
And now that the European model's graphics have come on board, it does have a fairly similar look. The Canadian looks more aggressive, but it can tend to be that way. Interesting how the European strikes a balance between that and the American model. It may be the closest to being correct here.
And I was going to look at the National Blend of Models, but the current state of those products on the National Weather Service's website is so disorganized a mess that I don't have the energy to comb through it tonight. I tried to e-mail them about those products several months ago, like what's the best one-stop shop for them, but I never heard back. The best site for maps that I remembered from the past is currently almost a week out of date. So that's useless to look at. A lot of these people working on TV or doing YouTube videos have access to products like WeatherBell that sort all this stuff out for them. I take the old-fashioned, low-tech approach here for the time being.
The best forecast for Tuesday is probably a mix of sun and clouds and a 30% chance of snow. The GFS MOS product is showing about a 20% chance of precipitation, but I think the ECMWF is the model closest to having this one right. This pattern favors what the European is showing, or maybe something in between that and the American GFS solution. To leave precipitation chances out for Tuesday altogether would be wrong here, and whatever falls is going to be snow. Our High should be about 30 degrees, and the Low should be in the mid-10's.
The GFS shows us dry again on Wednesday, and the other global models agree. Looks like we'll be mostly sunny, start the day in the mid-10's again, only warm to the mid-30's. So we may get just a little above freezing by Wednesday for Cullman, but for places further North like Huntsville or up across the Tennessee line, may not get above freezing. But this is at least a couple days in a row we stay below freezing, and with potential for some snowfall on Tuesday. And in this setup, anything that falls would accumulate. So that's why the internet has been buzzing so much about next week's weather lately.
Another consideration is that if we have a snowpack, even a light one, that could trend the temperature down for Wednesday. So that would keep more of us below freezing for a longer period.
Then Thursday looks partly to mostly sunny, High getting up to 40 or so, Low of 20 or so.
With this much uncertainty in the 7-Day period, I don't think trying a 10-Day Forecast is appropriate here, this time. It's just something I experiment with occasionally. Here I think it would only add to the confusion, which is something I try to avoid.
This situation coming up Tuesday is unclear. It could be a situation where the precipitation stays more over Central and South Alabama and is more of a wintry mix of snow and freezing rain, maybe some sleet in there too. If it does make it up in North Alabama or any adjacent Tennessee counties, then I really think we'll see all snow up here. But this is a dicey one. For now I'm putting the chance of snow at 30% for Tuesday. And we'll see how it looks from day to day as we get closer to the event. The model guidance has been all over the place.
Especially since this guy used to do weather report videos, among his many other quirks, I'd like to salute the late, great David Lynch. Most people at least saw that old show Twin Peaks, even if they never knew his name. He was a very eccentric, brilliant man who will be greatly missed.
Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.
— NASA (@NASA) January 16, 2025
In memory of David Lynch, we will continue to explore the otherworldly and the unknown. We will focus not on the loss, but on what we gained from the years we shared this planet with you. We will see you in our dreams. pic.twitter.com/PRZkYKkcsN
I love how even NASA felt the need to honor him. With Martin Luther King Day coming up, it is one more reminder that we do leave our mark on the world, for better or worse. Sometimes you don't realize how much until the person is gone. I certainly needed that reminder, so if some of you do, I'm passing it along. Usually I couldn't post public tributes to people in my family who died in the past, including the weather lady among us, without stirring up a lot of turmoil and bickering, so I like to give a tip of the hat to people I admire out in the larger world, sort of like when the world of weather lost people like J.B. Elliott or Alan Moller. I like to mention them once in a while, because they were just awesome. And so was David Lynch.
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