Most folks think I have the easiest job in the world. After all, I am on TV for only about 3 minutes a day during the 5:00, 6:00 and 10:00 newscasts, making for a nine minute workday. Needless to say, there is far more to the job than that. Yesterday was a pretty good example of how the schedule goes for me.

After sleeping for three hours, I got up at 2:00 a.m. to check on the winter weather situation. I then grabbed another quick nap from about 3:00 until 4:52 a.m. (my alarm goes off at 4:52 a.m. every weekday morning), it was back into the home office to produce a map discussion video for the Internet, along with a blog post. Then, I have live weather breaks on radio stations in Sylacauga, Anniston, and Gadsden from 6:00 until 6:45. Next I put on the “dad hat” and help our 8 year old get ready for school.

After spending some time with my wife (how in the world can she stand to be married to someone like me with such a strange schedule and recording a podcast and afternoon weather cuts for 24 radio stations, it was off to Greystone Elementary in Hoover for a weather program for all second grade classes. Then, I drove in the cold rain over to Coosa Valley Elementary in Pell City to see the fifth graders. From there I cruised by a local “hot spot” to feed those radio cuts I recorded earlier in the day.

I arrived at the ABC 33/40 Weather Center around 1:30, where I prepared and recorded another map video discussion, wrote a blog post, prepared the graphics for the TV weather segments. I also worked the e-mail inbox; I had over 100 messages that required an answer. Most of them were about school weather programs, or people asking about specific weather information.

I then did the weather on ABC 33/40 News at 5:00 and 6:00, recorded a webcast video for the Internet, and started writing the forecast package for this morning. After a run home for dinner with my family, it was back for more radio, TV, and Internet weather. I arrived home around 11:15 p.m.... when I went through my nightly ritual of eating some ice cream and having a little personal Bible study and time with God.

I was in bed around midnight for a little sleep that will end with that alarm going off at 4:52 a.m.

Let me stress all days are not this busy; I normally only do one school weather program per day, and 2:00 a.m. weather checks are usually not needed. But you can see how fatigue becomes a factor by the end of each week. Sure, I don't sleep much, but I love the job and look forward to doing this every day.

I guess the biggest struggle is doing weather in a "24/7" world... instead of worrying about three weathercasts on TV we now are "on" at all hours of the day thanks to blogs, podcasts, and other Internet/digital products. We do the best we can, and I love being able to "talk" with our audience at any time during the day and night using outlets like this blog.

Gotta run and take a nap!

Updating rainfall as of about 4:45 pm

1.10 inches in Helena
2.00 in Bluff Park (estimated)
1.91 at Riverchase (3340 Weather Office)
4.08 in NE Trussville

The Flash Flood Warning is in effect until 7 pm for...

Jefferson County
North Shelby County
St. Clair County
South calhoun County
North Talladega County

NWS doppler radar indicated flash flooding from repeated moderate to heavy rain from Birmingham eastward to Anniston and Oxford. Flooding is already occurring in some areas.

The Talladega County EMA Office reported flash flooding underway at Lincoln. U.S 78 and Alabama State Route 77 were becoming impassable due to high water.

A FEW UPDATED TOTALS SINCE RAIN BEGAN LATE SUNDAY NIGHT

1.78 inches at Riverchase (3340 Weather Office)
3.08 at Birmingham Airport
2.54 at Anniston (3340 WeatherNet downtown)
3.96 in NE Trussville...steady light rain continues

The Monday afternoon map discussion video is on the server:

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

This storm today is much, much wetter than the models suggested last night. The NAM was showing .77" for Birmingham; as of midday the rain total at the Birmingham Airport is 2.47"! J.B.'s total of 3.69" (in Trussville) is really incredible.

Can you imagine if the lower 5,000 feet of the atmosphere was colder? We would be measuring the snow along the I-20 corridor in feet instead of inches.

Other rain totals as of 2:00 p.m.:

Anniston 1.64"
Legion Field 1.26"
Riverchase 1.13"
Hamilton 0.82"
Gadsden 0.69"
Tuscaloosa 0.66"
Clanton 0.10"

We have elevated convection going on in the cold sector (the northern half of the state); we have a number of reports of thunder and lightning now. Also a number of reports of small hail from the stronger storms.

Temperatures are generally in the low 40s; the cold spot is Gadsden with 37. Down in far South Alabama, Mobile has surged to 71 degrees with sunshine in the warm sector of the storm.

TONIGHT/TOMORROW: The rain will continue to end from west to east this evening, and the sky should clear after midnight. Temperatures should drop into the 27 to 31 degree range for most spots early tomorrow. This means some scattered icing will be possible on bridges where water lingers overnight, and you need to take some extra time to get to work and be aware of potential ice patches. The best chance of "black ice" on bridges will be from about 4:00 until 9:00 a.m. tomorrow.

I don't think the problem will be extremely widespread, but be ready for some slow traffic driving into work tomorrow. And, TAKE IT EASY on the bridges.

Sunshine returns tomorrow with temperatures reaching the upper 40s.

WEDNESDAY/THURSDAY: A strong "Alberta Clipper" will roll through here late Wednesday night and Thursday morning. This feature will bring some clouds, and maybe a few snow flurries. But, the big story is very cold air on Thursday. Most communities probably won't reach the 40 degree mark.

THE WEEKEND: A very problematic forecast. I don't think the GFS has a good handle on the southern branch energy... most models don't understand these features until they get into the U.S. upper air network over Texas. I think we will have a very real chance of freezing or frozen precipitation sometime over the weekend;I am just not ready to jump on it yet until we have better evidence. One way or another the weekend will be cold.

We need to note here the ECMWF moves a surface low from far South Alabama to the South Carolina/North Carolina border over the weekend. HMMMM...

LONG TERM: I don't think the GFS has a clue in the longer range; it tries to deamplify the pattern too soon. A cross-Polar, very cold pattern seems to be established for much of February over most of the "lower 48". There will be a number of sleepless nights for us, I believe... dealing with winter weather issues and snow/ice threats. Stay tuned.

This has been a very busy day... thanks to the second graders at Greystone Elementary in Hoover, and the fifth graders at Coosa Valley Elementary in Pell City for being a great audience... you will see those kids on our news on ABC 33/40 tonight at 5:00 and 6:00!

It was centered from near Meridian, Miss., into West Alabama south of the Tuscaloosa area early this afternoon. North of the low a cold rain continues. It was only 37 degrees in Fort Payne and gadsden, 43 in Birmingham and 45 in Tuscaloosa.

BUT...

On the south and SE side of the low where warm air was streaming northward it was 71 in Evergreen and Mobile and 69 in Troy. Montgomery had 59.

RAINFALL UPDATE

Since noon, an additional 0.63 has fallen in NE TRussville bringing our total to 3.69 inches!

The National Weather Service has issued a Flood Warning for Village creek until 3 pm.

The stage at the Avenue W Bridge in Ensley has reached 9.4 feet. Flood stage is 10 feet.

A crest of 10.5 to 11 feet is expected by 2:30

A steady cold rain continues all across North Central Alabama early on this miserable Monday afternoon.

Only thing, I am not miserable. I love a day like this.

Amazingly, no rain from this storm in Montgomery so far.

The heaviest rain has been in a broad zone across the north central part and that it where it remains this afternoon.

And, yes, even some thunderstorms. We have a report of thunder with the cold rain at Winfield, Marion County.

At 2:10 pm, a thunderstorm was in progress in Trussville with moderate to heavy rain.

Heavy rain has also been reported in Alabaster. These totals were through noon:

1.33 in Inverness
2.47 at Birmingham Airport
3.06 in the NE part of Trussville (where I hang out)
1.15 in Anniston

The rain continues to move east but the broad zone of rain has also sank a little more to the south.

A two-hour power nap works wonders for body and soul.

Downside is that when I am short on sleep, I get silly.

Another one of those days when it seems like it is raining over the whole wide world. It is raining almost everywhere over the north third of Alabama.

A good old fashioned winter rain.

Don't ask me what a new fashioned winter rain is.

Because I do not know.

At 10:45 am there was a wide band of moderate to heavy rain across the Tuscaloosa-Birmingham-Anniston area. Moving east.

Temperatures warmed enough so that the NWS cancelled the winter weather advisories. Most temperatures are well up in the 30s now except in the extreme northeast.

It was 34 at Fort Payne Airport at 10. Up on Lookout Mountain, at Mentone, at an elevation of 1765 feet it was 32. But not much precipitation in that area. Atop Mt. Cheaha it was 37.

We will post an updated list of rainfall early this afternoon. We get a lot more reports at midday.

The National Weather Service will allow the Winter Weather Advisory to expire at 9 AM. That’s probably not a bad plan considering that all reporting stations I can find are above freezing except for a few isolated cold pockets up in DeKalb County.

The wintry mix has changed mostly to rain, and even though temperatures are hovering in the mid-30s north of U.S. 278, any icy spots should begin to wash away with the onset of heavier rain.

All this messy weather is caused by a process called “overrunning,” and it’s not complicated at all. Basically, cold air is dense and hugs the ground, but cold air like we have today only occupies about the lowest 4,000 to 5,000 feet of the atmosphere. You can consider that air mass to be shaped like a dome with the sloped edge coming through Central Alabama today. An area of low pressure along a cold front to the southwest of us is pushing warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico northward, and instead of moving the heavy, dense cold air, it takes the path of least resistance and jumps over it. As the warm air rises, it causes clouds and rain; those two things are going to actually enhance the cold air down here at the ground since they will keep us from having any sunshine to warm things up!

Back to that whole cold air – warm air thing. If the cold air is deep enough, you can get rain, sleet, snow, or a mixture of all three. This morning, the overrunning warm air began to erode the depth of the cold air somewhat, causing more of the precipitation to fall as rain instead of ice or snow. You win some, you lose some, and sometimes you just get lucky in situations like this. Given the model interpretations that we had over the weekend, the forecast was actually pretty good. Sure, the snow accumulations didn’t happen, but if you could move the low pressure center south by 50 or 100 miles, we’d see a big difference!

Speaking of models, I know a lot of folks like looking at every run and have fun trying to see what we’re all looking at in the weather office. I found a great website that has a lot of good information about how models work, and while it’s a little technical, it may give you some insight as to why the 12Z will be so different from the 0Z.

Here’s the site! UCAR Model Module