Forecast Thoughts

Lots of chatter around the weather office tonight about the possibilities for some significant winter weather during the next 10 days. In fact, the 18z (afternoon) run of the GFS model painted a very snowy scene across a wide area of Alabama, with a bullseye over East Central parts of the state starting during the day on Christmas Eve.

We find ourselves watching the latest model output anxiously every six hours. In fact that is what I am doing as I write this late on Friday evening.

Let's go through the latest ideas...

An Arctic front will bring another shot of very cold air to the state starting late tomorrow night. Sunday will be a miserable, cold and windy day with temperatures in the 30s. The cold airmass will also squeeze out a few snow flurries over North Alabama. There could be a light dusting on some of the ridges of Northeast Alabama.

Folks, by Monday morning, temperatures will average 17 degrees across the area. Some places could be as low as 13 degrees. I would not be surprised to see temperatures remaining in the 20s Monday!

But things flip-flop quickly on Tuesday. Our winds shift around to the south and a rain event starts by Tuesday afternoon. As low pressure forms and starts across the state Tuesday night, that rain will increase and continue into Wednesday before the low moves east. Some storms could form over southern sections of the state.

Another blast of really cold air will invade the South starting Wednesday afternoon. Then things get interesting.

Before the front is even through here very good, low presure will be forming over the western Gulf of Mexico. As this low moves across the Gulf, it will throw quite a bit of moisture up over and into the cold air mass in place. The rain/snow line will be over extreme South Alabama by Christmas Eve morning. We will see temperatures in the lower to middle 20s that morning.

Snow would begin early Christmas Eve morning as far south as Houston, Texas. This snow would spread into South Alabama and expand during the day. The 18z run of the GFS shows snow accumuluations in excess of six inches in a zone from South Alabama up into East Central Alabama. By Christmas morning, a large six inch zone would extend from near Gadsden southwest to Birmingham to Clanton to Troy and into East Central Georgia.

A strip of 1-3 inches would cover much of West Central, Northwest, North and Northeast Alabama.

This would be the first traditional White Christmas in recorded history for the Birmingham area as well as much of Alabama.

We emphasize that this is not a forecast at this time. It is simply too far in advance to be specific. But it is a possibility, albeit one that we will have plenty of time to hash and rehash as we head into the Holiday week.

**The late run of the GFS is out through Friday as I post this. The model output is further south and not as organize with the Gulf low. This would reduce the possibilities for snow over North Alabama. Once again, another flip flop in the models, so you see what we are up against.

Sorry for the long post, but it is an interesting situation. Everyone in the weather office will be contributing their thoughts all weekend long right here...