This will be a rather wild day in weather offices in places like Wichita, Kansas City, Des Moines, Chicago, and Detroit, thanks to a major winter storm moving out into the middle of the nation. Heavy snow is likely in a band through parts of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, northern Missouri, and the Great Lakes region. Some places will get up to one foot. Just to the south of the snow band, freezing rain will set up ice storm conditions in a narrow band, coating trees, power lines, and bridges with a layer of ice. Meteorologists will have a field day trying to figure out the places that will get snow, ice, or just plain rain. This storm dropped a whopping 23.5 inches of snow at Flagstaff, Arizona yesterday and last night.

For now, we are sitting on the sidelines here in Alabama with the storm track and Arctic air holding to the north. But, we will not have dry and mild all winter, and there are increasing signs of an upper air pattern change that will allow much colder air to invade the deep south around the middle of January. As we point here over and over, there is very little skill in a specific weather forecast beyond seven days, but we can get an idea of trends and patterns. And, the longer range models are hinting at a pattern that will bring much colder air into Alabama in 10 to 15 days. This cold air will most likely be very shallow in nature, perhaps less than three thousand feet thick, which sets the stage for all kinds of mischief down the road. A shallow layer of very cold Arctic air at the surface, and a moist southwest flow aloft on top of that often means a freezing rain situation.

I get the idea our busy days in this weather office will come during the latter half of the month, so we will enjoy the calm while it is here. In the meantime, we will watch the fun and frolic up north today from a distance down here deep in the heart of Alabama.

The afternoon video is posted on the server now:

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

What a wicked snow and ice event ahead for the middle of the nation. See the video for details and some webcam shots.

I bet TV weather operations are really buzzing in places like Kansas City, Wichita, Des Moines, and Chicago. Trust me, we aren't the only place in the nation that goes a little crazy with a threat of snow and ice.

Sure looks like we begin to get into much colder air around mid-month, and the latest GFS puts a southwest flow aloft over the cold air in the January 16-20 time frame. I am beginning to think it will be hard for us to get through the latter half of January without some kind of snow or ice threat somewhere across the deep south. Way too early to be specific.

I am a little concerned that temperatures on Thursday and Friday might be a little colder than we are indicating... the cold air will be very, very shallow and the computer model statistics can't handle it. Muscle Shoals might stay in the 30s all day Thursday and part of the day Friday, with 40s around here.

But, that shot of cooler air will be temporary one way or another... we go back in the 60s over the weekend, and low 70s are certainly possible by the first part of next week!

A little bit of something for everyone in this morning's video update, which is now on the server:

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

Here are some highlights:

*For cold weather fans, the 06Z GFS is advertising a major pattern change at mid-month, which would bring a return of much colder air to Alabama in about 10 to 12 days. Don't get too excited, however, this is the first time we have seen this and we aren't ready to buy into it yet. Lets watch the next few runs. Watch the video for the details.

*For warm weather fans, we go back into the low to mid 70s today and tomorrow, a good twenty degrees above normal for early January.

*A whopper of a snow storm will be coming out across the plains today. Flagstaff, AZ has 13.6 inches of snow on the ground this morning. Flooding is a problem in the lower elevations out there; I do the weather on KGCB-FM out there and that was quite a forecast this morning.

See a webcam of the snow in Flagstaff here:

http://134.114.127.22/jpg/hugesize.jpg

*This will be our 11th day in a row with no rain. A few showers will arrive Thursday and Friday, but I don't think we will really get all that much. Temperature forecasts on those two days will be very difficult; Muscle Shoals could stay in the 40s all day, while Montgomery is closer to 70. We are pretty much using mid to upper 50s in our forecast, but there will be a tight gradient from Cullman to Clanton....