For those of you who are interested in becoming an volunteer storm spotter here in Alabama, the first training session of the year will be held next week, on Tuesday January 25 in Jasper. The session is open to anyone interested, and there is no cost. The training session will be at the CHS building in downtown Jasper at 205 19th Street East.

The event is sponsored by the Walker County Amateur Radio Club, and if you are a licensed ham radio operator you can get additional information as you come into town on the 146.64 MHz repeater (no PL tone required). Jason Wright, Warning Coordination Meteorologist with the Birmingham National Weather Service will be the speaker. Brian Peters of the ABC 33/40 weather team was the WCM for the Birmingham NWS office for many years before he joined us last year. We plan on having Brian teach both basic and advanced storm spotting each year at our Storm Alert XTREME show, which will be sometime in October at a location to be announced.

For those of you who have been trained before, it is always good to get a refresher course. In fact, I learn something new just about every time I hear Brian speak. At SKYWARN training sessions you will learn more about the atmospheric processes involved in thunderstorm formation, and small scale features in severe thunderstorms that are important to identify. The bottom line is that you will never look at a thunderstorm the same again after you have been trained.

You will also need your amateur radio license to get seriously involved in storm spotting; most local amateur radio clubs hold license classes, or you can simply get the study guide for the fairly simple multiple choice exam that is required. The communications gear needed is relatively inexpensive, and you will meet some wonderful people in the hobby.

The afternoon update is loaded and ready to go:

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

Warmer than forecast this afternoon, and nobody is complaining. Most places have soared into tthe low 60s, a nice break from the recent chill. We should be back in the low 60s tomorrow, but the weekend changes are still ahead.

The latest guidance suite is coming in drier for Saturday, so we have backed off a bit on the amount of rain expected. It also lessens the chance of any long duration snow flurries, but we will still mention them for after midnight Saturday night and Sunday morning.

We stay in the 30s all day Sunday, and drop into the upper teens early Monday before another warm-up begins Monday afternoon.

See the video for details...

Big events all day today in Washington. Here is a spot report from Washington National Airport at 10 AM, EST, or 9 AM Alabama time:

Mostly cloudy although some breaks
Temperature 34
Wind NW 14 MPH
Wind chill 24

The forecast is for occasional snow flurries through mid-day and tremperatures remaining in the 30s all day.

The ground is white with snow that fell yesterday. There was not enough of the snow to seriously hamper travel.

The Thursday morning update is posted and ready for viewing:

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

A nice warm-up for Alabama through tomorrow. We should be well into the 50s today, and close to 60 tomorrow afternoon.

The weekend system will bring showers back to the state on Saturday, and maybe even a few thunderstorms. Along and north of the track of the surface low, a nice strip of moderate to heavy snow is likely somewhere in the general area from Chicago to Washington, D.C. this weekend. Model differences will make for a very tough forecast for those folks up north trying to define the axis of the heaviest snow.

Around here, much colder air plows into Alabama after midnight Saturday night, and we stay in the 30s all day Sunday with a very brisk north wind. There will be a window for snow flurries from about midnight Saturday night until mid-morning Sunday. I still think there is a chance of a dusting of snow on the higher ridges, above 1,000 feet, across Jackson, DeKalb, and Cherokee counties of northeast Alabama. No big deal around here.

See the video for details...