I love New York City. I love the hustle and bustle. I love the frenetic pace. I love the activity. It truly must be one of the world’s greatest cities. Last weekend, I jetted to Washington, D.C. and met the General Manager of our hotel in Largo, Maryland. Kenny and I headed out for the Big Apple on an Amtrak regional train. We worked all the way to New York on our laptops, our GPS attracting the conductor and staff who thought it neat that we could follow the trains progress all the way on the computer screen. I played video of my tornado exploits in Kansas this past spring and we became best buddies with the train staff. There is no better way to travel between Washington and New York (and Boston as well.) Parking is easy. You arrive in Manhattan rather than at one of the airports. There is plenty of room in the coach cars with lots of legroom.

The Club Car is a real treat. We enjoyed a nice breakfast of fresh fruit, yogurt and coffee as we raced along the Northeast Corridor. The AMTRAK regional trains travel at about 100 mph, the Metroliners at about 125 mph and the ACELA trains faster than that. Traveling at ground level allows you to really see the cityscapes and countryside. Of course, there is not much countryside in the megapolis between Washington and New York City.

Before we knew it, we were in Philadelphia and not soon after, in Wilmington, Delaware. The friendly conductor brought us each a New York Times to enjoy, along with some soft drinks. We both set our fantasy football lineups for the weekend’s NFL games using our cellular phone cards as we headed through New Jersey. After the Metropark station, the spectacular skyline of New York City came into view. Seeing it for the first time since 2000 was very moving for me. Conspicuously absent was the dramatic sight of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. We arrived into Penn Station and hit the ground running. There is something special about emerging at street level and looking up at the cavernous buildings on 7th Avenue. More later.

Just posted the afternoon web update
http://beta.abc3340.com/weather/video.hrb

Not much change in our thinking since this morning. Lots of clouds tonight and tomorrow, but not much rain. A little drizzle is possible for the high school football games, and the fields will be wet from the morning rain, but no big rain event tonight.

Same deal tomorrow; plenty of clouds but not much rain. An impulse in the southwest flow aloft will bring showers and storms in here tomorrow night into Sunday morning. Guess there is chance some of this rain could arrive in Tuscaloosa toward the end of the Iron Bowl, but most of the game should be played rain-free.

The pre-Thanksgiving storm looks like a big snow producer in the general region from Nebraska to Minnesota, with severe storms here in the deep south. The maps favor a squall line moving through here Tuesday night with the potential for damaging winds. We will update our thoughts on the situation here through the weekend.

Headed out to Chelsea High School for tailgate weather on ABC 33/40 at 5:00 and 6:00... back in the studio for the 10:00 newscast tonight.

Noticed during the last week that a lot of trees are trying hard to give us some decent autumn color. But many, many trees have not changed from green yet including two young Bradford Pear trees in my back yard.

I hope the increasing chance of rain--especially Saturday night, Sunday and again Tuesday will not knock all those leaves to the ground.

Another concern is on Wednesday. The 12Z (6 am, CST) prog chart from NCEP shows a significant low pressure area moving across Detroit with a strong cold front trailing southward to BNA-BHM-MOB (Nashville-Birmingham-Mobile) If that prog holds up would not be surprised for North and Central Alabama to have some westerly winds gusting over 30 mph Wednesday.

Not good for autumn color.

I have received a ton of e-mail about the new blog format, and all of it positive. I do think this is going to be a load of fun.

There are plenty of questions, mainly about the "RSS" feed. RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication". You can load a simple RSS reader program on your computer, and when a new post goes online here you will get immediate notification, like an e-mail program. There are plenty of nice free RSS readers available, like this one: http://www.feedreader.com/

Keep in mind that RSS feeds are growing at an explosive rate, and you can subscribe to any RSS site you like.

If you have an RSS reader installed, you will know the second we post updates on here during times of severe weather, winter storms, etc. It will be a great way of communicating with our viewers.

As the number of posts grows, you can sort them out by category (see the list on the right). Everything from J.B.'s Miss Molly adventures to my "On The Road' posts to the usual weather talk. And, the calendar feature means you can go in and pick any day in the past and review what was posted then!

I am relived to know that we have decided NOT to give Little Miss Molly a bath today. Instead, we will wait until Monday when she already has an appointment with the vet to update her shots, grooming, and, of course, a bath. We will ask for a special shampoo that adds moisture to her dry skin.

She scratches very frequently because of her dry skin problem. We also started her on a special dog food yesterday that aids that problem.

One of our readers suggested goggles when we try to give her a bath. We are thinking raincoats!

The last time we "bathed" Molly, she suddenly came roaring up out of the bath water wiggling like an eel. She looked just like a missle being launched out of an underground silo. Her ears were laid back to help her aerodymatics. When she landed on the tile floor she shook from head to toe as a dog does when coming out of a swimming pool. We not only had to change clothes but we had to mop also!

Three cheers for her vet!

Seems like all of the sports people were indicating that both the Alabama and Auburn football coaches were preparing for some kind of monsoon during the game tomorrow. I don't know where they are getting their weather information, but it looks more and more like there will be little or no rain during the Iron Bowl.

I even heard one of the sports people talking about a "70 percent chance of rain" during the game. That is a sure sign that information didn't come from us since we don't use "probabilities of precipitation" in our public forecast products.

I think our forecast is right on target; a few showers this morning, and then very little rain this afternoon through tomorrow. Which means most high school games tonight will be in good shape, and the Iron Bowl should be a game where rain is just not a big factor.

Rain is likely Saturday night into part of the day Sunday with a surface front easing in here. Monday should be mostly dry, and then we will be on the lookout for a potential severe weather setup by Tuesday night of next week. Thanksgiving still looks dry and cool.

Today's morning video update is on the server:
http://beta.abc3340.com/weather/video.hrb