The Thursday afternoon map discussion video is on the server:
http://www.jamesspann.com/
This place is a madhouse today... a ton of people here for the big 10th birthday party for ABC 33/40. I will be out at the big tent doing the weather live at 5:00 and 6:00. Looks like some good food out there, and the weather could not be better.
Scroll down for a full list of the lows around the state this morning, thanks to the fine work of J.B. Elliott. I sure hope he makes our party today; I will post some pictures on the blog later tonight.
Tomorrow will be another beautiful day, with temperatures in the 50s early in the day, rising into the mid to upper 80s by afternoon. The humidity will remain low.
THE WEEKEND: Afternoons will be a little steamy over the weekend as dewpoints slowly rise. We will be in the upper 80s on Saturday, and might touch 90 Sunday afternoon. There will be a few fair weather cumulus clouds around, but there is no chance of rain.
NEXT WEEK: A cold front will roll through Alabama on Tuesday. The 12Z run of the GFS is a tad slower; that model suggests our best chance of showers and storms will come Monday night into Tuesday. For now it looks like a system that will bring rainfall amounts of one-half to one inch. A few strong storms are possible, but for now the chance of a big severe weather events looks pretty small. Cooler and drier air will roll in here by Tuesday night and Wednesday, and the rest of the week looks dry and comfortable for now.
To the north, a major Rocky Mountain snow will unfold over the weekend with a cold core upper system passing through. High terrain locations over much of Montana, Wyoming, and the northern parts of Utah and Colorado could see over six inches of the "white stuff". We will have to find some good webcams up there to watch the winter scenes.
TROPICS: Florence and Helene will remain in the open Atlantic and are no threat to land, and the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean are fairly quiet for now.
EL NINO: Let the media madness begin. Scroll down to my morning post for thoughts on this subject.
ITUNES7: I downloaded the brand new version of iTunes yesterday (7.0), and I must admit it is pretty cool. I purchased and downloaded the movie "The Rookie", about a high school baseball coach in West Texas who made it to the majors after his high school team won the district championship (his players challenged him to try out after the season if they won the title). A great baseball movie with no ugly language, and a true story (the guy's name was Jimmy Morris). Worked like a charm; the movie coast $9.95 and it took about 45 minutes for the download. And, you can watch as the movie downloads. I don't think I would like to watch it on my iPod, but it looked great on the Mac Book Pro.
There is also a new version of Quicktime available as well.
There are a few bugs; I notice we now have a little audio issue when you watch or listen to the map discussion video on an iPod. We will work to get that cleared up; there is no problem when you watch it within iTunes. Also, one more thing, all iTunes videos are now 640 x 480; meaning much better quality. But, the file sizes are larger and it takes a tad longer to download. Our map discussion video (for iTunes and the iPod) is now 640 x 480.
Enough geek talk... I will have the next map discussion video posted by 7:00 a.m. tomorrow!
Another Cool Night Ahead
September 14, 2006, 1:04 pmAnother Reason to Dance in the Streets
September 14, 2006, 9:48 am
Yesterday at this time we were celebrating a statewide drenching. Today we celebrate for another reason--a nice, crisp feel in the early morning atmosphere.
Certanly not sweater weather or even long sleeve shirt weather. I always wear short sleeve shirts until it gets down into the upper 20s. That is why my nickname is Eskimo.
Took a round trip drive this morning all the way across Deerfoot Parkway passing near where the Cahaba River has its beginning and across several ridges. Those ridges are lush and green. No hint of autumn color. The visibility was great. It seemed like you could see Mt. Cheaha or DeSoto State Park if it weren't for the ridges and curvature of the earth. I wish I was in either place. Nice to see that Camping Life magazine as named DeSoto State Park as the second best place to camp in the USA. However, don't forget other good places like Cheaha.
The sky was as blue as it was long, long ago before Columbus Discovered America and before Lewis and Clark headed west.
Did not mean to write a book. Let's look at this morning's low temperatures:
ALABAMA
50 in Crossville, DeSoto State Park, Black Creek*
51 in Hamilton and Valley Head
52 at Cullman Airport
53 at Pinson, Crudup** and Rainbow City (almost hot chocolate weather for Margie)
54 in Jasper, Ashveille, Ft. Payne Airport, Cullman Agricultural Station
55 in Albertville, Courtland and NE Trussville
56 in Muscle Shoals, Huntsville, Tuscaloosa, Anniston, Talladega, Helena
56 in East Trussville (Jay Shelley, NWS retired) and near Clay where Jefferson, St. Clair, Blount meet
57 in Inverness, Livingston, Gaylesville, Decatur, Birmingham Airport
58 in Alabaster, Dearmanville, Calera, Jackson Shoals
59 in Centreville, Guntersville
60 in Alexander City, Childersburg, Talladega, Cordova
62 in Heflin
64 in Wadley
65 in Montgomery
*The low in Black Creek was actually 49.6. I feel sure there are some areas in the deeper valleys of North Alabama that had upper 40s this morning, but just no reports from there.
**Crudup is an Alabama Power Company substation in Little Wills Valley and along Little Wills Creek in NE Alabama. This is one valley to the east of Bill Wills Valley and Big Wills Creek. Hard to beat.
NATIONAL
31 in Hibbing, Minnesota
28 in Gulkana, Alaska
FINAL NOTES
The people in Browning, Montana would laugh at us celebrating our low temperatures this morning. Browning is famous for having the greatest one-day temperature drop in the nation's history--a plunge of 100 degrees in only 24 hours. They are located just east of the front range of the Rockies. Numerous showers and snow showers are expected in Browning after midnight tonight. Several inches of snow will accumulate in the mountains west of Browning.
A FOOT OF SNOW?
Heavy snow will develop over parts of Western Montana in the next 24 hours. Some of the higher elevations could exceed one foot of new snow. Down in the lower elevations east of the mountains, snow will be accompanied by strong winds possibly creating near blizzard conditions.
Certanly not sweater weather or even long sleeve shirt weather. I always wear short sleeve shirts until it gets down into the upper 20s. That is why my nickname is Eskimo.
Took a round trip drive this morning all the way across Deerfoot Parkway passing near where the Cahaba River has its beginning and across several ridges. Those ridges are lush and green. No hint of autumn color. The visibility was great. It seemed like you could see Mt. Cheaha or DeSoto State Park if it weren't for the ridges and curvature of the earth. I wish I was in either place. Nice to see that Camping Life magazine as named DeSoto State Park as the second best place to camp in the USA. However, don't forget other good places like Cheaha.
The sky was as blue as it was long, long ago before Columbus Discovered America and before Lewis and Clark headed west.
Did not mean to write a book. Let's look at this morning's low temperatures:
ALABAMA
50 in Crossville, DeSoto State Park, Black Creek*
51 in Hamilton and Valley Head
52 at Cullman Airport
53 at Pinson, Crudup** and Rainbow City (almost hot chocolate weather for Margie)
54 in Jasper, Ashveille, Ft. Payne Airport, Cullman Agricultural Station
55 in Albertville, Courtland and NE Trussville
56 in Muscle Shoals, Huntsville, Tuscaloosa, Anniston, Talladega, Helena
56 in East Trussville (Jay Shelley, NWS retired) and near Clay where Jefferson, St. Clair, Blount meet
57 in Inverness, Livingston, Gaylesville, Decatur, Birmingham Airport
58 in Alabaster, Dearmanville, Calera, Jackson Shoals
59 in Centreville, Guntersville
60 in Alexander City, Childersburg, Talladega, Cordova
62 in Heflin
64 in Wadley
65 in Montgomery
*The low in Black Creek was actually 49.6. I feel sure there are some areas in the deeper valleys of North Alabama that had upper 40s this morning, but just no reports from there.
**Crudup is an Alabama Power Company substation in Little Wills Valley and along Little Wills Creek in NE Alabama. This is one valley to the east of Bill Wills Valley and Big Wills Creek. Hard to beat.
NATIONAL
31 in Hibbing, Minnesota
28 in Gulkana, Alaska
FINAL NOTES
The people in Browning, Montana would laugh at us celebrating our low temperatures this morning. Browning is famous for having the greatest one-day temperature drop in the nation's history--a plunge of 100 degrees in only 24 hours. They are located just east of the front range of the Rockies. Numerous showers and snow showers are expected in Browning after midnight tonight. Several inches of snow will accumulate in the mountains west of Browning.
A FOOT OF SNOW?
Heavy snow will develop over parts of Western Montana in the next 24 hours. Some of the higher elevations could exceed one foot of new snow. Down in the lower elevations east of the mountains, snow will be accompanied by strong winds possibly creating near blizzard conditions.
A Refreshing Morning
September 14, 2006, 4:58 am
The Thursday morning map discussion video is on the server:
http://www.jamesspann.com/
Fall is sure in the air this morning. At 5:00 a.m. the mercury has dropped to 59 at Birmingham. The coolest spots on the hourly observation list are Crossville and Cullman with 54 degrees; Gadsden and Fort Payne are reporting 55. I wonder if some of the cooler valleys have reached the 40s... J.B. will have a post of the morning lows a little later when they are all reported.
Look for a string of sunny days ahead with warm afternoons and cool nights. We go back into the 50s tomorrow morning; most spots should be somewhere between 55 and 59, much like this morning.
BIG SNOW STORM: The first major winter storm of the season will unfold over the northern Rockies over the weekend, some of the high elevation communities across Utah, Wyoming, and Montana will be a good covering by Sunday. That storm moves into Canada by Monday, and the trailing cold front will move through Alabama early Tuesday morning. At this point it looks like the best chance of showers and storms will come Monday night, although we have mentioned a chance of rain as early as Monday afternoon, and as late as Tuesday morning.
Another nice surge of cool and dry air will move in here during the middle of next week.
TROPICS: Gordon and Helene will remain far from land; you can see the advisories and graphics on our tropical page:
http://beta.abc3340.com/weather/tropics.hrb
We will keep an eye on the Gulf of Mexico when that front next week gets down there. Looks like the long track, Cape Verde systems this year will tend to move north into the open Atlantic, and any threat to the Gulf coast will probably come from systems that form close to home, and old dying surface fronts always have to be watched this time of the year.
EL NINO MEDIA MADNESS: Get ready... NOAA released a statement yesterday that they feel a weak El Nino cycle is beginning:
http://www.weatherparty.com/story.php?title=Weak-El-Nino-has-returned
Watch the national media go bonkers on this... there is no doubt there is a change in the ENSO cycle, but the possible impact on our winter season is very uncertain. During most El Nino cycles you expect an enhanced sub-tropical jet, which can mean lots of precipitation for the Deep South. Let me suggest this excellent paper by Gary Petti, former MIC of the Birmingham NWS office:
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/bmx/significant_events/research/Elnino/el_nino.php
Gary wrote that paper in 1997, and some of his conclusions were right on the money.... including the idea of active tornado seasons in 1998, 1999, and 2000. All of you remember the big tornado events during those years.
PARTY TIME: We are having a big 10th birthday bash today at ABC 33/40... I will be doing the weather live under the "big tent" set up outside out studio at 5:00 and 6:00... I hope to see many friends out there today. But, before the party I will have the afternoon map discussion posted by 3:30!
http://www.jamesspann.com/
Fall is sure in the air this morning. At 5:00 a.m. the mercury has dropped to 59 at Birmingham. The coolest spots on the hourly observation list are Crossville and Cullman with 54 degrees; Gadsden and Fort Payne are reporting 55. I wonder if some of the cooler valleys have reached the 40s... J.B. will have a post of the morning lows a little later when they are all reported.
Look for a string of sunny days ahead with warm afternoons and cool nights. We go back into the 50s tomorrow morning; most spots should be somewhere between 55 and 59, much like this morning.
BIG SNOW STORM: The first major winter storm of the season will unfold over the northern Rockies over the weekend, some of the high elevation communities across Utah, Wyoming, and Montana will be a good covering by Sunday. That storm moves into Canada by Monday, and the trailing cold front will move through Alabama early Tuesday morning. At this point it looks like the best chance of showers and storms will come Monday night, although we have mentioned a chance of rain as early as Monday afternoon, and as late as Tuesday morning.
Another nice surge of cool and dry air will move in here during the middle of next week.
TROPICS: Gordon and Helene will remain far from land; you can see the advisories and graphics on our tropical page:
http://beta.abc3340.com/weather/tropics.hrb
We will keep an eye on the Gulf of Mexico when that front next week gets down there. Looks like the long track, Cape Verde systems this year will tend to move north into the open Atlantic, and any threat to the Gulf coast will probably come from systems that form close to home, and old dying surface fronts always have to be watched this time of the year.
EL NINO MEDIA MADNESS: Get ready... NOAA released a statement yesterday that they feel a weak El Nino cycle is beginning:
http://www.weatherparty.com/story.php?title=Weak-El-Nino-has-returned
Watch the national media go bonkers on this... there is no doubt there is a change in the ENSO cycle, but the possible impact on our winter season is very uncertain. During most El Nino cycles you expect an enhanced sub-tropical jet, which can mean lots of precipitation for the Deep South. Let me suggest this excellent paper by Gary Petti, former MIC of the Birmingham NWS office:
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/bmx/significant_events/research/Elnino/el_nino.php
Gary wrote that paper in 1997, and some of his conclusions were right on the money.... including the idea of active tornado seasons in 1998, 1999, and 2000. All of you remember the big tornado events during those years.
PARTY TIME: We are having a big 10th birthday bash today at ABC 33/40... I will be doing the weather live under the "big tent" set up outside out studio at 5:00 and 6:00... I hope to see many friends out there today. But, before the party I will have the afternoon map discussion posted by 3:30!
by James Spann
in General Thoughts
Page :
1