Radar Note

Just got a note from Gary Watkins, our operations manager here... a crew from Denver will be in town for the next four to five days, and will be installing a big hardware upgrade on our Doppler Radar system atop Double Oak Mountain in Shelby county. So... we will be pulling our radar images off the web later today.

The radar system has been up on top of that mountain for 9 years keeping an eye on the sky for us; it was time for a major overhaul. We will let you know when it goes back in service...

Just swinging by the office on the way to the midday speech at Inverness. Enjoyed seeing a big crowd at the Habitat for Humanity ground breaking this morning at Irondale...

And, yes, it rained on me coming to the station. Rain drops that were NOT in the forecast. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. That is a good example, however, of how you don't need to fall into the trap of using model MOS guidance blindly. If the lower atmosphere would have been a little colder we could be having snowflakes now.

And yes, I did peek at the 12Z GFS... still looks COLD next week. It shows a big 1044 mb high over Montana in the core of the cold air with rising pressure. Details coming up on here a little later... stay tuned...