This has been Severe Weather Awareness Week in Alabama—an annual educational effort sponsored by the National Weather Service, the Alabama Emergency Management Agency (EMA) and the American Red Cross. I hope people are not taking this effort for granted since it is repeated every February. I even heard a person once suggest that Awareness Week be held every second or third year. I disagree strongly.

Every year, people move to Alabama from other states. Often they come here from a state that is not “tornado prone.” Too, it doesn’t hurt to fine-tune yourself even if you have lived here for eons.

Most office buildings, plants and schools have a safety plan in place, so it is good to practice it. However, I have an idea that most individual families do not pay enough attention to pre-planning. It is essential that each family member knows where to go and what to do the minute a tornado warning is issued. There should be certain place in you home where everyone meets. That may be a basement or a smaller room on the lower floor of your home. It is essential to stay away from windows.

Updated tornado data covering 1950 through 2004 shows that Baldwin County had the most tornadoes—82. Fortunately many of those are relatively weak tornadoes and quite a few of those triggered by land-falling tropical storms or hurricanes.

It would be better if we had about 300 years of tornado records. For example, Wilcox County has experienced only 5 tornadoes since 1950 while adjacent Dallas County has been hit 27 times. Part of this is due to population density and the number of storm spotters. A long record would smooth that out somewhat. Be aware and stay safe. And DO buy a weather radio!

—J B Elliott

Wanted to post this great article that explains how you can use RSS:

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=32&aid=78383

This blog has an RSS feed, and when you understand how it works and begin to gather all your data under one RSS reader you will find it very, very valuable, and a great time saver. Many people use the RSS feed here, and I encourage you to check this out.

We use the Firefox browser, which has RSS, or "live bookmarks", built in. You can also check out the web based RSS programs and stand alone programs mentioned in the article. Good stuff...

The Thursday afternoon video is on the server:

http://beta.abc3340.com/weather/video.hrb

The great north, in this case, is Cullman county. We take Storm Alert 2005 to Hanceville tonight... we will be in the auditorium at Wallace State Community College. The entrance is right on U.S. 31... just about 8 miles south of Cullman. We expect a big crowd so get down there by 6:30 or so to get a seat. We are looking forward to it.

Posted a little early today with the show tonight ahead, but we have all of the 12Z data in house.

Not many changes:

*Maybe a little colder tonight than we forecast this morning. Looks like most places wind up in the mid 20s by daybreak tomorrow... with a range between 20 and 30 from valleys to ridge tops. The surface high should be overhead by daybreak, so the wind should be light. The sky condition will pretty much determine how low we go.

*Cool and dry weather continues through Saturday, and we bring in the chance of rain Saturday night and Sunday. Stalled surface front and pesky southwest flow aloft means an extended period of wet weather. It will be very hard to time out individual rain episodes, but it sure looks like there will be some chance of rain just about every day from February 20-25.

*GFS still advertising a nice cold snap at the end of February and the beginning of March. Will be interesting to see how we get there, but it looks pretty cold at this point.

Watch the video for the details... am packing up now for tonight's show. We will be flying in Air Link 33/40... the actual trip will take only about 20 minutes from our Riverchase studio. Not much traffic at 2,500 feet!

The Thursday morning video is on the server:

http://beta.abc3340.com/weather/video.hrb

Temperatures will be at or below normal levels for the next two days; highs in the 50s and a light freeze early tomorrow. Most places wind up in the upper 20s, colder valleys could reach the 20 to 25 degree range.

Coming attractions:

*Saturday still looks dry at this point, I have mentioned only a small risk of a shower late in the day.

*A prolonged period of wet and unsettled weather begins Sunday as rain arrives. We could very well have some rain at times on a daily basis Sunday through the following Thursday (February 20-24) as a cold front hangs up with a southwest flow aloft persisting across the deep south. I still have some concern about flooding issues before the event is over. Maybe some thunder along the way, but I don't see a setup for severe storms at this time.

*The models continue to advertise a sharp change to colder weather around the end of the month or the first of March, but how we get there remains up in the air. The GFS has come up with a variety of storms in recent runs, including some kind of superstorm in the northeast Gulf. But, those things come and go and there is no consistency. Split flow patterns are very tough to deal with in the short range, and almost impossible in the longer range. I do think we will have at least one nice storm rolling through here before the cold air arrives, or maybe even after it arrives. But there is simply little confidence in a pattern like this.

*Come out and join us for Storm Alert 2005 tonight up in Hanceville. I expect a packed house, so get down to Wallace State before 6:30 to get a seat!