Couple More Cool Days, Colder Sunday, Tuesday Night Looking Stormy

FORECAST:

Friday (High 66, Low 37): Sunny. Cool. 

Saturday (High 65, Low 43): Mostly sunny. Cool and breezy.

Sunday (High 51, Low 30): Sunny. Cold.

EXTENDED OUTLOOK:

Monday (High 57, Low 33): Partly to mostly cloudy. 

Tuesday (High 70, Low 46): Windy with increasing clouds during the day, thunderstorms likely at night - some may become severe. 

Wednesday (High 66, Low 55): Breezy with gradual clearing. 

Thursday (High 54, Low 36): Sunny. 

PRONÓSTICO:

Viernes (Máxima 66, Mínima 37): Soleado. Fresco.

Sábado (Máxima 65, Mínima 43): Mayormente soleado. Fresco y ventoso.

Domingo (Máxima 51, Mínima 30): Soleado. Frío.

PERSPECTIVA EXTENDIDA:

Lunes (Máxima 57, Mínima 33): Parcialmente a mayormente nublado.

Martes (Máxima 70, Mínima 46): Ventoso con aumento de nubosidad durante el día, tormentas eléctricas probables por la noche; algunas pueden volverse severas.

Miércoles (Máxima 66, Mínima 55): Ventoso con despeje gradual.

Jueves (Máxima 54, Mínima 36): Soleado.

NOTES:

There is a SKYWARN class in Tuscumbia the evening of March 11 taught by the National Weather Service in Huntsville. There are also online classes from the Birmingham and Nashville NWS offices. 

Speaking of National Weather Service offices, a salute and thanks to James Spann for speaking up for what we all know to be true about the need to keep these offices open that serve us during times of fair and foul weather. 

Troy Kimmel and Kim Clockow-McClain discussed a lot of important points about looming budget cuts on the latest Weatherbrains show. 

By the way, I would promote other weather podcasts on here if I saw much activity on them. But the others, when I check every couple months or so, I usually don't see anything new. If you have a weather podcast I'm not paying any attention to, feel free to leave me a comment or e-mail and get my attention.

If you don't feel like taking a SKYWARN class (they are free, by the way), then if you care about staying safe in storms at all, you should probably review your tornado safety plan before we get to next Tuesday night. And keep that plan in mind through at least the month of April. Sometimes we still have issues into the month of May, varies from one year to the next. Tornadoes get everyone's attention, but sometimes we have issues from severe thunderstorms that produce large hail and damaging straight-line winds too. We sure did a couple weeks ago with widespread wind damage. 

DISCUSSION:

At 5 PM skies are sunny in Cullman. The temperature is 63. The dewpoint-temperature is 29, making the relative humidity 27%. Winds are out of the West at 8 miles per hour, with gusts up to 16 mph. As usual, it's a little breezy behind that cold front from last night. The pressure is 30.04 inches and steady. Our High today was 64, and the Low was 52 this morning. 

It is sunny and 64 degrees in Jasper. The dewpoint is 28, making the relative humidity 26%. Winds are from the Northwest at 8 mph. The pressure is 30.05 inches and rising slowly. The High was 68 today, and the Low was 39. 

Haleyville has sunny skies and 62 degrees. The dewpoint is 25 degrees, making the relative humidity 24%. Winds are Northwest at 10 mph. The pressure is 30.07 inches/994.4 millibars and steady. The High today was 64, and the Low was 51. 

Fort Payne had a High of 65 and Low of 41 today. Decatur had a High of 67 and Low of 57. Huntsville had a High of 67 and Low of 54. Muscle Shoals saw a High of 67 and a Low of 55. Tupelo saw a High of 68, Low of 53. Memphis had a High of 66 and a Low of 51. And Nashville, the Music City, had a few more clouds hanging around today, but overall mostly sunny, a High of 66 and Low of 51. 

We didn't get much rain from that front last night, and now that light rain is up in the Carolinas. 

And the upper-air balloon soundings from 6 AM this morning at both Birmingham and Nashville show that cooler, stable air moving back in behind the front. We had a warm couple of days lately ahead of the front, even though it was a dry one. And we're breezy, as we often are behind even a weaker cold front like this one. 

And we will have another dry cold front dropping through the region this weekend. 

Tomorrow looks sunny with high pressure in place, High temperature of about 66, Low tonight near 37. 

Saturday that other dry cold front moves through the region, and we'll be breezy again, staying mostly sunny, High temperature in about the 63-65 range and the Low about 42-44 range. 

Then Sunday we've got strong Northwest wind flow aloft, surface High pressure moving through the Ohio Valley. And it just looks clear and cold, High of about 50 or so, Low near 30. 

Monday looks partly to mostly cloudy but dry around here as all the best moisture looks to stay to our South, West, Northwest. But we'll start to feel the pattern shift as the high pressure moves up into New England. We'll have a Low pressure system centered out near Kansas City. The High should be in the upper 50's and the Low in the lower 30's around here. 

And this next storm system is the one everyone is really going to be watching. It may bring severe storms to the Mid-South on Tuesday, could be some organized severe weather. Around here in the Southeast and the Tennessee Valley in particular, it's a little trickier, the timing especially. But we will likely have some severe weather risk. It has the potential to be a significant severe weather event for at least parts of the Mid-South. The Tennessee Valley will probably get the leftovers, but those could be well worth respecting. Looks like we'll see a High near 70 around here, Low in the mid-to-upper-40's. Clouds will be increasing, and it looks like a windy day as well as a warm day. For now going to forecast a 50% chance of thunderstorms, thinking most of them will be at night in the form of a squall line. But we'll get to that a little later when looking at the severe weather potential in a little more detail, try to nail down the timing and specific risks. This is still 5-6 days out, so a lot of details are yet to be determined. Just watching it and seeing what we know or what looks likely . . . 

The GFS is showing the squall line approaching Northwest Alabama around Midnight Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. And it's got the main center of Low pressure up around Chicago. 

The ECMWF is showing a similar timing and only has the Low displaced slightly farther to the South and West from the GFS. 

Thanks to our friends from Tropical Tidbits for making these and other great weather graphics freely available to the public. They mainly focus on hurricanes, but some of what they've got on their fine site is useful year-round. 

By Noon on Wednesday, both global models show the front clearing the TN Valley and moving on into Georgia. So it looks like a day of gradual clearing, isolated showers could hang around, but mainly clouds decreasing throughout the day, sort of a raw day like you'd expect behind a storm system like this, High in the 60's and Low in the 50's. 

Then Thursday looks sunny again with a High in the mid-50's and a Low in the mid-to-upper-30's. 

And we can expect an average of about an inch or so of rainfall from this system Tuesday into early Wednesday. 

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If you'd like to support what I'm doing here, please feel free to drop a dollar in my bucket at the link above. On to the discussion of severe thunderstorm potential for next week . . . 

SEVERE WEATHER POTENTIAL:

As of right now, the global models are showing a squall line moving through the area between about Midnight and 3 AM in the wee hours of Wednesday morning next week. 

At the moment, it looks like it may be starved for moist, unstable air as fuel, but with impressive wind shear and of course the source of lift (the cold front). It reminds me of the system we had a couple weeks ago, except that it may get nastier for parts of Mississippi, depending on how various factors play out. 

Looking at the ECMWF, it sure looks like the main challenge for this system is getting enough instability to work with. The ECMWF also shows dewpoints strugging to get to 60 degrees in North Alabama overnight. 

The ECMWF's "AI" mode that did well with some hurricanes last year is showing even more meager instability. And if this were to verify, it could bust this severe weather threat. But then we have to keep in mind that especially 5-6 days out, global models can tend to underestimate the unstable air in early March. And it doesn't take much instability to fuel severe thunderstorms when the wind shear and lift are strong enough. This looks similar to the system we had on February 15. And it produced a lot of wind damage, even several tornadoes in the region. 

This system is still beyond the reach of the mesoscale models or convection allowing models. 

There have been other runs of the ECMWF or some of its variants that showed better instability up into our region and actually well up into Tennessee and Kentucky. But I'm not going to get too hung up on that. Just know that 5-6 days out, global models can waffle back and forth on mesoscale details like that. Overall this looks like a typical cool season setup, where we've got plenty of dynamic support for storms, plenty of wind shear, but may struggle to get a baseline of unstable air. Anywhere that does get the unstable air has a good chance of severe weather happening, sort of like a couple weeks ago. Every event is unique though. Some are just similar, and this reminds me of the one a couple weeks ago. Sometimes these setups bust, but my gut feeling is that this one won't, not completely. Likely we'll get the leftovers from a more significant event of severe weather to our West on Tuesday. 

The Storm Prediction Center has outlooked us for a basic 15% risk for severe weather Tuesday night - this outlook (the top graphic above) runs until 6 AM Wednesday. Note the enhanced 30% severe weather risk for Central and Western Mississippi, stretching back through Southern Arkansas, Northern Louisiana, and even parts of East Texas. That is the most favorable zone for supercell thunderstorms to initially develop on Tuesday, also where the tornado threat is expected to be highest. Even after the storms form into a QLCS line though, this has the potential to a be a widespread event. Notice just about the whole state of Tennessee is also outlooked for a basic risk of severe weather. 

Then after 6 AM Wednesday the risk shifts into Georgia, Southeast Alabama, the Carolinas. 

Around here we'll have a risk for severe thunderstorms late Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning that are capable of damaging winds and also isolated tornadoes throughout North Alabama and Southern Middle Tennessee. So be prepared for that, and have a reliable way to get alerts (not just an outdoor siren) that will wake you up if you need to wake up in time to get to a safe place. 

And let people know. March starts our main severe weather season, but a lot of people are still thinking like it's winter time. And we're about to be into the spring season, which is our prime time for severe weather in this part of the world. Sometimes we just get rain, but a lot of times, things get pretty stormy, when the right ingredients come together. Anybody who's lived here any length of time understands that. Just have to have reasonable precautions in place in case you find yourself in the path of a tornado or other really damaging storm some day. 

FOOTNOTE:

Adding this at 7:35 PM - been seeing a lot of news of firing already beginning in NOAA/the National Weather Service. Doing this is a horrible mistake. Whether it's Trump, Elon Musk, or anyone else in charge of these things, they really need to think twice. Because this is going to really hurt everybody. 

I try to give these things a few days or a week before commenting, but I've been dreading this sort of thing for a long time. And it looks like it is underway. I hope someone with some sense, who is willing to use that better sense, does something to mitigate the damage this recklessness could do to all of us.