FORECAST:
Thursday (High 52, Low 29): Sunny and cold. Still somewhat breezy at times.
Friday (High 64, Low 33): Partly to mostly cloudy and breezy. Clouds will gradually increase throughout the day.
Saturday (High 63, Low 49): Mostly cloudy and breezy with isolated showers possible during the day. Scattered showers are more likely at night.
EXTENDED OUTLOOK:
Sunday (High 56, Low 39): Partly to mostly sunny with a 20% chance of lingering showers.
Monday (High 65, Low 34): Sunny.
Tuesday (High 71, Low 38): Sunny.
Wednesday (High 74, Low 42): Mostly sunny.
PRONÓSTICO:
Jueves (Máxima 52, Mínima 29): Soleado y frío. Todavía con algo de viento a ratos.
Viernes (Máxima 64, Mínima 33): Parcialmente nublado y ventilado. Las nubes aumentarán gradualmente durante el día.
Sábado (Máxima 63, Mínima 49): Mayormente nublado y ventilado con posibles lluvias aisladas durante el día. Es más probable que haya lluvias dispersas por la noche.
PERSPECTIVA EXTENDIDA:
Domingo (Máxima 56, Mínima 39): Parcialmente a mayormente soleado con un 20 % de probabilidad de lluvias residuales.
Lunes (Máxima 65, Mínima 34): Soleado.
Martes (Máxima 71, Mínima 38): Soleado.
Miércoles (Máxima 74, Mínima 42): Mayormente soleado.
NOTES:
The American Meteorological Society has issued a statement about the necessity of preserving the National Weather Service while so many government budget cuts are going on.
And Bryan Norcross has written an article about how the NWS was threatened in a similar way in the 1990's.
Maybe more interesting (at least less depressing), here is an interview with John Gordon, who just retired from the National Weather Service in Louisville, Kentucky. He helped spin up the Huntsville office with Bud Cramer in 2003. Thanks to journalist Doug Proffitt for that video.
And if you haven't taken a SKYWARN class this season, please consider it. We are into our prime time of year for severe weather, although usually April is the peak of it. These classes are free.
The latest episode of Weatherbrains featured Pete Wolf. They did mention the difficulties the NWS is currently going through, but the main focus was on severe weather forecasting and interpreting data (especially from radar) accurately in real time.
DISCUSSION:
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We've still got some light and spotty showers moving through the area this evening, North Alabama and up into Middle Tennessee, even a little in Eastern Tennessee and over in Georgia. Some of this may not even be reaching the ground, but the showers that are falling are light. This is what we call wraparound moisture behind a cold front.
In fact, some of the counties of Eastern Tennessee, including Marion, are under a Winter Weather Advisory in case some rogue snowflakes up in those mountains could accumulate up to about an inch. The different shade of blue you see in Georgia is just a freeze warning. The brown counties are still under a Wind Advisory. And the blank, white area in North Alabama are the counties covered by the National Weather Service office in Huntsville, which opted to let our Wind Advisory expire already. Sometimes it's kind of a nice feeling to not be under any kind of hazardous weather advisory, ya' know?
That Low pressure system is still hanging around the Great Lakes, so even though the cold front is into the Atlantic Ocean now, we've got some moisture wrapping around the back side of the system, some of it as far South as Tennessee and Alabama. That's the reason for our lingering clouds and light showers.
So tomorrow really will be a sunny day with High pressure moving in from the Southwest. We'll see a High of about 51-53 and a Low tonight near 30. It'll still be breezy at times. Winds could still gust as high as 20 miles per hour tomorrow.
By the way, if you notice some of the forecast details change from day to day, good job on observation skills. That's why I rarely post 10-day forecasts. They are almost never reliable. After a week in advance, you're looking more at general trends. Even in the summer around here, a 10-day-outlook is dicey, because a hurricane or tropical storm could upset it. I may try a 10-day-outlook tomorrow and just see how it does, but for now, sticking to what's reliable when the pattern is dynamic. Forecasting in the Spring season around here is a challenge. Summer is the easiest season to forecast. I guess Winter is the second-hardest, but it really isn't too bad unless we have chances for snow or ice.
We could see isolated snow showers in Northeast Alabama tonight mainly, but no meaningful accumulations are expected. That's why Marion County, TN is under a winter weather advisory up there, and down here, we're not. Really most places that see any snow around here will probably just see flurries.
Then on Friday the high pressure moves into the Gulf/Atlantic waters, and our clouds will be increasing, a High in the lower-to-mid-60's and a Low in the lower 30's. Will be another breezy day.
Saturday is no longer looking like a particularly stormy day around here even via the GFS. Most of the day should stay dry, but isolated showers are possible, looking for a High in the lower 60's and a Low near 50. Once again it could be breezy with another system moving through.
Most of the rain should come overnight between Saturday and Sunday morning, and even that may be light. Overall I'd give Saturday a 30-40% chance of showers.
And it just looks like a cool rain, might have some thunder with it.
The GFS has started to show some lingering moisture on Sunday behind this system, where in previous runs, it has shown us dry.
The ECMWF still shows us mostly dry with maybe a lingering shower or two, and I think that's closer to being the truth. Since we may not get much rain even overnight, not all that widespread or heavy, only keeping a 20% chance of rain in for Sunday with clearing conditions expected. The High should be in the mid-to-upper 50's, the Low near 40. Again probably a breezy day.
Then Monday through next Wednesday, clear sunny skies return with High pressure in the region.
As far as temperatures, Looks like High in the mid-60's for Monday, Low in mid-30's. Then Tuesday the High in the lower 70's and Low in the upper 30's. And then Tuesday, High in lower-to-mid-70's and Low in the lower 40's.
Our rainfall totals for this forecast period will average about a quarter-inch at most, all the significant rain expected to be Saturday night.
CHATTER:
And we had a pretty good damaging wind event here yesterday and last night, lots of people losing power. The squall line seemed to ramp up as it moved farther into Northeast Alabama and then Georgia.
There were a few tornadoes off to our South and West, but the air up here was too cool and stable to support more than just high winds that brought down a lot of trees and power lines. Fortunately did not hear of any injuries from some of the brushfires that started from the downed power lines. The only injuries I saw from this event were from the tornado in Whistler, Mississippi.
Which was rated E/F-2 and threw/destroyed a mobile home after rolling a car in a parking lot and taking out some chicken farm buildings. Both people in the mobile home that was picked up and thrown were injured. It was thrown about 50-100 yards from the foundation. They are calling it a single-wide manufactured home. Then a wood frame home lost about half its roofing, probably because of an open carport. Then just up the road, the tornado rolled another mobile home which injured the two other people who were hurt in this storm. Then it damaged some trees and a couple more homes, but the main thing I noticed reading through the survey, it picked up a pickup truck and dropped it about 20 yards away, bending the frame as it was dropped. So that's why meteorologists say not to get caught in a mobile home or a car during a tornado. People have survived by leaving them and just lying in a ditch or sometimes flat on the ground. I guess the one I'll always remember is a trucker who survived by leaving his vehicle at the last moment and grabbing onto a tree in a panic. The (E/F-4) tornado sideswiped the house at the yard he was in, and he was pretty banged up, but not seriously injured. They found his truck thrown some distance away. So that likely saved his life. That was in the Super Tuesday Outbreak way back in 2008. These days when I have time, I take a look at where people get hurt in these events. Usually it is avoidable. Even in that horrible tornado outbreak of April 27, 2011 when you had multiple tornadoes that were rated E/F-3, F-4, or F-5, there were only about 30-40 cases where people lost their lives despite doing the right things. And there were over 250 people killed in Alabama alone. So . . . what a ratio that is. Even thinking worst case scenario, going by my memory here without checking it, that's 40 out of 250 deaths that were just inevitable. Those 30-40 people needed an actual storm shelter to survive, and they didn't have one. But the other 210 were within walking distance of a place they could have sheltered in their home and been okay. You don't even have to remember how to do fractions and percentages to see what a ratio that is. Things have gotten better since then overall, but there's still work to do for sure. And forty people out of 250 is 16%. If it was more like 30 cases of it not being survivable, that's 12%. So the odds are in people's favor if they take the proper precautions, before we're able to get better building codes in storm-prone areas and without most people having access to an underground basement or storm shelter. The main thing is getting people out of mobile homes in enough time before a tornado hits. These people who were injured last night had a very close call. I'm sure it's quite an experience to be thrown with your home or to be in it while it's turned over and rolled along the ground. But they made it out alive. And sometimes it's not easy to leave a mobile home for better shelter. So just saying, there is work left to be done among everybody who cares about these things.
Silver lining, nobody got killed in this event, even in that tornado that hit a couple of mobile homes with people in them. And even with so much wind damage and brush fires going on, overall people were okay. Probably just scared by the winds and aggravated by the power going out.
As far as other chatter, I don't have much to offer other than cynicism. One thing that did catch my attention in a good way was that Governor Ivey decided to commute someone's death sentence because she had serious doubts about his actual guilt. And my attitude toward the death penalty is that it should only be awarded to those people who have truly earned it. So people can call her "MeMaw" and whatever, but I also had a MeMaw who wouldn't have lynched anybody without due process and using her good sense, if she had the authority. So . . . kudos.
Occasionally I lapse into rambles or rants of my personal opinions about news events, but it's better for everyone if I don't all that often. If you don't believe me, you haven't seen some of my unedited tangents yet. I really don't have a home in the political world or even the world of social issues I care about. I'm horrified by the number of "LGBT" people who get murdered every year, but I'm almost equally horrified by how many people think J.K. Rowling should be burned at the digital stake just because she refuses to back down from her opinion that gender is a biological fact, not an abstract idea that can be changed at one's whim. I have a lesbian couple in my family tree who truly are two of the most obnoxious people I've ever met. And I know another lesbian couple who are friends of the family (one is named Mindy, and I never can remember the other chick's name, so I think of them as Mork and Mindy . . . for what it's worth, Mindy is cute as can be, blond curly hair and all shy) but two of the most pleasant people I've seen drop by that particular relative's house. So already you can see the problem and why I mostly stick to weather. Though I do have my lapses. Perhaps this quasi-explanation is one of those lapses.
Oh and by the way, I think "LGBT" is a stupid acronym too. The groups it designates are not all the same. And when they add letters, it gets even dumber. I liked how Norah Vincent used to just say "the queer community." But direct, honest language is practically illegal now, unless you're Donald Trump. And he probably only gets away with it because he's still lying about other things. And because he's rich. That's probably why Ms. Vincent is dead now. There was no place left in the world for people like her. She is missed, at least by people like me.
I really do care about what NOAA/the National Weather Service is currently threatened with, and I hope some people with better sense (like Robert Aderholt for example) will mitigate the damage done by this "bull in a china shop" mentality toward government budget cuts.
Salem threw up three times in a row last night, but it looked normal, just his food, so I wonder what else he ate that might have upset his stomach. I have to watch leaving anything lying around, even chips, or these crazy cats will get into it. Stormy is particularly found of licking the cheese or bean dip from the lid of a new container. I'll let her do that, but I draw the line when she actually starts trying to eat it from the jar. She usually throws up such foolish things she has to taste-test. When my funds were more abundant, or maybe I was just being reckless about my waistline, I loved sharing a dip with her that my dad used to make, that tastes about like a grilled stuffed burrito from Taco Bell. That was the first time she dropped her mean facade and sat in my lap, was after the first time I let her have some of that dip. She is a funny cat; she also likes to attack rolls of toilet paper if they are left anywhere besides up on the toilet. Or rolls of paper towels. Salem seems okay today. He actually came to see me when I went to the bathroom earlier, since we're already on that subject, and kept rubbing against my legs and purring. I couldn't tell what he was asking for. Maybe he was just being friendly. Then he started rolling around and swatting the edge of the litter box. He and Stormy bumped noses briefly in the kitchen today without her giving him the growl of death or either one swatting the other, so I guess that counts as progress. She is sitting by my feet washing her paw as I finish typing this.
They are two of the best cats I've ever had in my life. And that comes after some really unfortunate ways of losing some pets, all cats. I had a dog a long time ago, when I was still in high school. She got killed by a reckless-driving paper lady after I graduated. No comment on what happened to my last four cats, don't feel like revisiting that tonight, especially on a public forum. But I was overdue for being able to give one a long and happy life. The first of the four cats I just mentioned losing did have a long and mostly happy life, but I wasn't able to help her as much as I wanted to when the end came. Two of them, I had for about three years each. And this last one before Salem, named Elsa, I only had for about six weeks. And now I'm taking care of two that hopefully will live long and prosper. Because as an old literature teacher of mine used to say, cats are people too.
I still dread the first time I have to try to get them both into shelter together for a tornado warning. Man, that is going to be a trip. I might should wear protective clothing. Their claws and teeth might be more dangerous than the storm outside. I tried it for a severe thunderstorm warning (with a tag that a tornado was possible) one time lately, and they kept running in and out of the closet space. When one of them would come in, the other one would go out. They were trying to avoid each other. And finally they both ran out. And I let them be, figuring if it got too bad, they could get up under a cabinet. Animals have good instincts like that. One thing I like is that both of them, if they see me heading that way, want to follow me. It was really tough to get my last two cats (that I had for any significant length of time) to come with me, especially Binx, the Siamese. I had to chase him through the house. And sometimes I just gave up. But most often I got him. And he would beg and plead to be let out of there. So I'd open the door for him after the radar signature was past here, even before I woke my legs up and got out of there myself. And he would run out. I'd give him a treat afterward as sort of an apology. But you know, you don't want your pets getting blown away either.
On that note, I forgot to put this in the severe weather safety writeup this year I think, but major thanks to the people at Sportsmans Lake for making a pet-friendly shelter available in Cullman. That's one reason some people living in mobile homes don't get out and go to such a shelter, they have to leave their pets behind. And for somebody with only one loyal pet especially, like a dog that really is a man's (or woman's) best friend, that can seem too cruel and just leaving them to fend for themselves. I knew a tough old mechanic who told me he didn't want to leave his dogs to go to a shelter just up the road, because as he put it, "the terror they would feel." And they were in a mobile home. So this really counts, and I think it's awesome of the people who did that. I'm going to credit it to Cullman's German heritage, because my brother told me that when he and his wife visited Europe several years ago, the people in Germany were some of the friendliest he'd ever met.
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