FORECAST:
Friday (High 70, Low 55): Partly to mostly cloudy. Widely scattered showers and thunderstorms are possible.
Saturday (High 76, Low 57): Mostly sunny and breezy during the day. Rain showers are likely at night.
Sunday (High 60, Low 51): Gradually decreasing clouds. An isolated shower may linger in the morning.
EXTENDED OUTLOOK:
Monday (High 58, Low 46): Partly cloudy with a 20% chance of showers.
Tuesday (High 64, Low 47): Rain.
Wednesday (High 64, Low 48): Rain.
Thursday (High 60, Low 47): Mostly cloudy with a 50% chance of rain.
PRONÓSTICO:
Viernes (Máxima 70, Mínima 55): Parcialmente a mayormente nublado. Posibles lluvias y tormentas eléctricas dispersas.
Sábado (Máxima 76, Mínima 57): Mayormente soleado y ventoso durante el día. Es probable que haya lluvias por la noche.
Domingo (Máxima 60, Mínima 51): Nubes que disminuyen gradualmente. Es posible que quede una lluvia aislada por la mañana.
PERSPECTIVA EXTENDIDA:
Lunes (Máxima 58, Mínima 46): Parcialmente nublado con un 20 % de probabilidad de lluvias.
Martes (Máxima 64, Mínima 47): Lluvia.
Miércoles (Máxima 64, Mínima 48): Lluvia.
Jueves (Máxima 60, Mínima 47): Mayormente nublado con un 50 % de probabilidad de lluvia.
NOTES:
The next SKYWARN class is 6 PM February 11th in Moulton. Online classes are also available. Severe Weather Awareness Day will be held in Nashville on February 22.
This week is Severe Weather Awareness Week in Alabama, so you might want to refresh yourself on your safety plan. It wouldn't hurt to check the battery backup in your NOAA Weather Radio before we get into the month of March, which tends to be when severe weather potential starts to crank up around here. Or some years we get lucky and mainly just have rain in the Spring months. But other years it gets really nasty, especially March and April, sometimes lasts into May.
The drought information statement for Huntsville seems to still be broken, so maybe it'd be better to check out the report in Nashville for Middle Tennessee. This rain next week will help us out in that department, places that still need a lot of rain.
We had a mostly overcast and breezy day in Cullman with a High of 73 and a Low of 61. For anyone who hasn't noticed, we call that "unseasonably warm."
We've actually got some showers and thunderstorms moving through mainly areas near and along the Tennessee/Kentucky border up there. Some very light rain is showing up in North Alabama and Southern Middle Tennessee, but some of that is probably virga, evaporating before it reaches the ground. I saw where the Storm Prediction Center was considering a Severe Thunderstorm Watch for parts of Middle Tennessee earlier.
This activity is focused along this front, which as we expected days ago, has more-or-less stalled out. For anybody not familiar with weather maps, that's why you see red and blue marks on the same side. That means a stationary front. They can be completely still, or they can be like this one, which has tended to move North and South very slowly the last few days. Well first it moved South, then back up North, and is now drifting Southward again. So here we are.
Also notice those 500 millibar heights are showing zonal wind flow from West to East. That's why it's tough to get a weather system (like that front) to move through here at the moment, and we're staying in this almost tropical warmth in early February.
Those showers and storms will gradually work down into Alabama tonight though as the front starts to drift South again. Showers will be more numerous than they were around here during the day today.
By tomorrow the showers should be more scattered in nature again, and it's warm enough we could see enough instability for some thunderstorms. High should be near 70, Low near 55.
Friday night it should move back northward as a warm front and then be stretched through Memphis on Saturday. So we should be mostly sunny around here on Saturday, a High in the mid-70's, Low in the mid-to-upper-50's. And with this front taking aim at us again, it will be a breezy day. Then rain showers will be likely Saturday night.
Most of the rain should be over by Sunday, could see something isolated left over in the morning. And clouds may be slow to diminish throughout the day. Looks like a High near 60, Low near 50. This will start our pattern change, although it really takes until Tuesday before it kicks in. But the front should clear North Alabama on Sunday.
Then on Monday the front will push further down toward the Gulf Coast. (I know President Trump signed an executive order renaming it "The Gulf of America", but a lot of the world is still going to call it "The Gulf of Mexico". I say pick your poison. The drinking water will tear you up more in Mexico, but I think the air is worse for folks with asthma to breathe in some of the bigger cities up here in America. And the women have more attractive skin down in Mexico without needing to go to a tanning bed. Then again, Marty Robbins did a song about getting shot down there because he fell in love with a Mexican girl. So like I say . . . pick your poison. I may just call it "The Guff" to keep things simple in the future. Saw somebody from Louisiana suggest that. Or I may continue to use it as a source of cheap comedy like you're reading here. I know most of my readers probably prefer "Gulf of America" as being more official and patriotic, but I haven't gotten any death threats for making fun of it . . . not yet anyway. I'd hope if I did get an irate reply, it'd be from somebody with more imagination, like those old Roy D. Mercer prank calls. "Hey boy, you call 'at thang the right name or I'm 'oan' come down 'ere and WHUP YORE ASS!" Or at least somebody calling me a Communist or Marxist or something. So far nothing. I'm guessing people that read this are smarter than Southerners usually get credit for by the rest of the world, and have more of a sense of humor.)
And whoa, that was a tangent. So let's get back to the weather. We'll see a High in the upper 50's, Low in the mid-40's for Monday, rain chances staying minimal, about 20%, so 1-in-5 chance for any one spot getting a shower.
Then on Tuesday, along comes a Low pressure system coming out of Texas, to breathe new life into our frontal boundary. Rain is likely, and it may be heavy at times. We'll see a High roughly in the mid-60's, Low roughly in the mid-40's. Could be looking at lower 60's and upper 40's for some of us.
And notice by Wednesday the GFS model shows our upper-level pattern has shifted so that our winds aloft are no longer zonal from the West but are out of the Southwest.
That's why this front is going to actually move some and dump some heavy rains. It'll be down close to that GUFF coast (as they might say in Louisiana, not sure if that's a Cajun pronunciation or what) Wednesday. And up here we'll have a day similar to Tuesday. Many of us are likely to see heavy rains from this front.
And it looks like Thursday will be fairly similar, at least scattered showers hanging around, but probably more like a 50-60% chance in the cards. The High should only be near 60 though, slightly cooler than the past couple days.
Do we dare to venture beyond seven days this time?
The GFS shows rapid clearing next Friday.
The ECMWF shows a more gradual clearing trend.
So we might see isolated showers lingering early next Friday. Not sure if I'll put this up top in an official forecast, but down here, let's talk it out and have some fun up to 10 days since this forecast is pretty high-confidence in the overall pattern. Now the exact details of next week are not as certain, but the basic idea of Tuesday through Thursday, we get really soaked, that is high-confidence.
Overall I'd vote for decreasing clouds Friday, High of 60 or so, Low near 40.
Oh and by the way, that's Valentine's Day. How appropriate, sunshine coming back slowly.
The two major global models show two different scenarios that could bring us rain again Saturday, or at least low rain chances. And this just looks like a mess to me. Probably not trying a 10-day-outlook this time unless Sunday's guidance is a little clearer.
Which it isn't.
Here's the European look.
So I'm not doing a forecast beyond Thursday this time. Started to, but this setup does not justify it.
We could easily see rainfall totals averaging 3-4 inches over the next seven days. If you live in a flood-prone area, might want to keep an eye on next Tuesday through Thursday, especially when driving. Remember: You never cross water that covers a roadway, because there's no way to tell how deep it is. Water rescues are dangerous for the people being rescued and for the people doing the rescuing if flooding does occur and people drive into it like that.
CHATTER:
I noticed that Bill Maher interviewed Luke Bryan and Matt Gaetz lately. I'm going to try to listen to at least the Luke Bryan interview. That other dude seems so goofy that . . . I might check it out just out of morbid curiosity. Brad Paisley was awesome on that show, think it was a couple years ago. Now these are adult conversations, pretty much uncensored; Bill is usually high on marijuana or at least having a few drinks during these chats. But I think it's one of the few places to find an honest podcast anymore. William Shatner was another great guest on there. Even Haliey Welch was on there at some point. And I think she's got her own podcast now. (I'm not linking to it . . . the people who know, know.) Nearly all the guests argue with Maher, and I don't know if that's just because he's got strong opinions or what. I think he picks some good guests, and I've yet to see anybody get socked in the mouth, however heated the argument got. So it's sort of mature content, but it sure beats the old Jerry Springer stuff. Or reading Facebook.
I walk a fine line sometimes wanting to keep this blog family-friendly but then thinking about the reality that an awful lot of kids are probably watching stuff like Family Guy. And if anything, if they were to saunter by this site and click on a link to a podcast like the one I mentioned above (Club Random), they might have some context for the vulgarity they're already used to hearing and/or seeing on a daily basis. And cultural standards are in a weird place. There's actually a company now called Pure Flix, like a really sanitized inspirational/religious alternative to Netflix. But then you've got Donald Trump telling Franklin Graham that he just can't totally give up swearing. And I personally hear more vulgar language these days from the (self-proclaimed) saints than I do the everyday sinners. So it's tough to know where to draw the line.
It's like I heard John Horack say in a lecture one time, the world has become multi-polar. It's not like the days of the Johnny Carson show, where most everyone agreed on what was and wasn't publicly acceptable, in good or bad taste. Then again, the 1960's and 70's were pretty turbulent. And then things got really conservative in the 80's under Ronald Reagan. So maybe Johnny just knew how to be classy no matter what the world around him was like. If I'm capable of that, it's a trick I'm still in the process of learning.
It's sort of like in real life, there are children in my extended family that I make a special effort not to swear around. Unfortunately it's probably the only time I make an effort not to have a potty mouth. (So I'm perhaps even worse than Trump . . . I don't even try.) My cats hear plenty of profanity. But I try to be on my best behavior when I'm around people's kids, especially if they're kinfolks. And then I'm wondering if that's a waste of time, considering how much cussin' and carryin' on they hear during an average ball game, especially if their parents' team is losing. I don't have easy answers to how to be classy these days or to any of the other more serious problems going on. But I will say that if we don't set better examples, we've got no right to complain if the upcoming generation continues to screw up the world just as much as we and the people before us have. And if they don't think a whole lot of us.
Okay, that's my soapbox for today.
Just for fun, I'll mention that the "weather lady" in our family, my great-grandmother, tried very hard to quit cursing when we were born, her great-grandkids. She did not totally succeed, but she did try. One time coming back from some field trip, I told one of my math teachers, pointing to where I lived, "Right there's where my Papaw cusses out the cars (at his garage), and down there's where my Granny cusses her refrigerator." I'd had a bit of caffeine that day when we went out to eat, I think. That's what I blamed it on when my Granny asked me, "What did you mean a' tellin' (name withheld) that I cussed my refrigerator?" Turns out my teacher found it really, really funny. And told a mutual friend of theirs how funny it was.
And for a while, whenever that door handle would come off the refrigerator again, and she got mad, she'd tell me, "Now I'm not gonna' cuss at it. I'm just gonna' fuss at it."
She would not approve of some of the language I have come to use when appliances malfunction on me. Sometimes I make her sound like a Sunday school teacher. And she really was a good lady, no joke, just "ornery" as they called it in her day. She had no use for "gutter talk", the way men talk at a garage or in the barber shop when no women are around. (Or actually the way a lot of women talk too, even some feisty media personalities like Megyn Kelly or Meghan McCain . . . or Sharon Osbourne.) But she could warm the air up with some pretty choice words within her limits when the refrigerator or the dryer was messing up. One time my brother walked in on her cussing the dryer, and she got really embarrassed. Eh anyway, I'm glad the younglings in my family tree that I mentioned above will slap me for saying words like "dadgum" and "crap". We took those words for granted when I was a kid. I actually got made fun of for being uptight about some of them because I looked them up in the dictionary and wasn't sure they were so innocent after all. I'm not sure why these kids' standards are so strict, but at least they do have standards.
One of my great-aunts always said of my Granny's slip-ups, "I can't stand to hear a woman cuss." And to show her the respect due her, she did always tell me it was a bad habit, even if she did it. She told us the same thing about smoking; she had emphysema, a disease that also took its toll on one of my favorite crazy artists, David Lynch, who passed away recently. She didn't quit smoking for her own health though; it was because our doctor told us that it was causing one of my brothers to keep getting bronchitis. And that was it for her. So if there's a point to all my rambling, we are all interconnected, whether born in America, Mexico, on some random boat floating its way around the GUFF, in the back of a Greyhound Bus rollin' down Highway 41, or wherever. Having said that, one vice I definitely share with David Lynch is that I'll never give up milkshakes, even if Robert Kennedy Jr. does his great health revolution and it's considered a terrible influence on the youth and everything . . . I will continue to slurp those things until my dying day. So bite me.
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