Thanks to the gang here for allowing me a little down time. I will write about a few of the week's highlights later... but it has been great spending time with family over the past seven days.

Trying to get a good briefing this afternoon... the two big issues involve the risk of severe weather tomorrow night and Monday, and a big change to cold weather in about 6 days.

SEVERE WEATHER THREAT: Looks like we will have our main threat of severe weather from about midnight tomorrow night through 8:00 a.m. Monday. Can't rule out an isolated tornado, but large hail and strong straight line winds would seem to be the main threat here. These storms will be ahead of a pre-frontal trough. The actual front comes in early Monday afternoon, and I guess some additional development is possible on the front; we will have to watch for that.

Best chance of organized severe storms during the pre-dawn hours Monday seems to be north of I-85 and east of I-65.

We note the new 18Z NAM only shows 0.07" of rain for Birmingham.

COLD WEATHER RETURNS: I am sure this will generate some nasty e-mail, but I just can't see how we have highs in the 50s and lows in the 30s at the end of the week. Even my old nemesis, the GFS MOS, has a high of 39 degrees in Birmingham on Friday. I can't disagree with that. The cold will be especially stinging after the recent mild snap. For the 50s/30s lovers, hold off on the hate mail until a week from now... we will see who is right then!

COVERAGE: What a clash... a severe weather threat on the biggest football day of the year. ABC 33/40 is pretty much wall to wall football Monday, including the Auburn game at noon. Thankfully, it looks like the severe weather threat will be well to the east of here by football time. If by chance something does come up during the afternoon, we will be using our new live Internet stream plus the "dot twos"... 33.2 and 40.2 on the digital side. If we have tornado warnings we will have a small box open on the main signal. We will take the weather coverage full screen if we indeed have a real tornado emergency. But, with today's technology we can air both football and severe weather coverage at the same time.

And, once again, it is very unlikely we will have a conflict anyway if our current thinking is correct.

RADAR: Our radar system atop Double Oak mountain developed a problem last week... I am not sure we can have the problem resolved in time for the storms tomorrow night. With the holiday/vacation situation we are running on a skeleton staff on the engineering side. So... the static images on the web site are not available right now. However, you can use our new live stream to watch the NEXRAD images anytime. There is a big link on the front page of the ABC 33/40 site:

http://www.abc3340.com/weather/

When you bring up the video window, you can move your mouse over the video and see two icons which give you the option to bring up the video in a Real Player window, which allows you to size the video anyway you want, or a full screen "theatre" option.

We will have plenty of updates here as the event gets closer... the 00Z model data will be very interesting to review tonight....

The Saturday map discussion video is on the server at:

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

Dense fog this morning across Central Alabama with the temperature/dewpoint spread at zero. Fog should burn of toward mid-morning. Cold front came through during the early morning hours much as was forecast.

With no real change to the air mass, temperatures should be around 60 degrees today. A warm front should move northward on Sunday with a small chance for a shower and a few clouds but temperatures will climb into the mid and upper 60s. Some locations south of Birmingham area likely to push the 70-degree mark. With the return of southerly flow, moisture will climb, too, setting the stage for a severe weather outbreak on Monday.

The Storm Prediction Center has outlooked Georgia and a small sliver of eastern Alabama for a moderate risk of severe weather for Monday. A capping inversion is likely to limit severe weather development early Monday until the trough gets a bit closer and can assist with some greater upward ascent. Wind profiles also suggest the possibility of long lived supercells with hail, damaging wind and tornadoes. Timing of the event will be the key to whether we experience severe weather in Central Alabama or the severe weather develops a bit further east. Definitely a stay tuned situation.

That weather system moves east of us Tuesday but again no major change in the air mass for Tuesday and Wednesday with highs in the lower 60s. That changes toward the end of the week as the east coast trough sharpens up and we should see a return to colder conditions. Temperatures by the end of the week are likely to be back below normal. The front on Wednesday will probably come through dry for most of us.

Hope you have a great weekend and enjoy this unusually warm end to December and 2005.

-Brian-

David Wilhelm, the 12 year old son of Mike Wilhelm asks a very interesting question:

"What if they run out of names on the Greek Alphabet?"

Well, David, I think we can pretty much issue a "money-back-guarantee" that will never happen. But I was the one that said we would never have a named storm around Christmas! (Take note Chuck)

There are 18 more names after Zeta. If all those were used I would think it was the end of the world. (And, I am not trying to be funny)

And, I would head for the hills.

Can you imagine a tropical storm or hurricane with some of these names?

Eta...the next one...pronounced "Ay-tay"
Mu...pronounced "Mew"
Nu...pronounced "New"
Phi...pronounced "figh-or-fie"
Chi...pronounced "Kigh"
Psi...pronounced "Sigh"

Shall we send out a plane and do some cloud seeding on Zeta and end this for good? That was tried once and it backfired.

Great to see 12-year old David have a healthy interest in weather. Credit his dad for that!

But my answer to the original question is "I don't know" I doubt if it has ever been planned for.

DENSE FOG ADVISORY THIS MORNING

Dense fog has formed across much of North and Central Alabama this morning in areas where skies have cleared. Use extreme caution if you will be driving through mid-morning. Visibilities will be severely reduced, hampering your ability to drive.

At 6 a.m., visibility was down to 1/4 mile at many reporting stations across the area. At the Birmingham Airport, skies were still mostly cloudy, and fog had not formed.

The fog should burn off and clouds should erode by midmorning across the area, giving way to sunshine. Temperatures will warm into the 60s across the area today.

It now appears that strong to severe thunderstorms will develop late Sunday night across Alabama, and continue into Monday morning. Of course, this time of day is more unfavorable for a major severe weather event. It appears now that this system may be a lot like the one that passed throgh Alabama Wednesday. Hail could be the primary threat early in the event.

As the system moves into East Alabama, the threat for supercells storms and the attendant damaging winds and even tornadoes may increase.

It is interesting to note that the Storm Prediction Center has outooked much of Georgia, South Carolina, eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina, eastern Kentucky and a small sliver of East Alabama for severe weather on Monday. This is their strongest wording on a Day 3 outllok. They indicate that a significant tornado risk exists in the outlook area for Monday, especially during the afternoon and nighttime hours.

This is a developing weather situation, and everyone should pay close attention to forecasts issued throughout the weekend.