Winter Chill Continues - Precip Chances Lessening?

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

Quite an interesting day yesterday that certainly busted my temperature forecasts. Clouds from the Pacific raced across Mexico and Texas with enough thickness to reduce the warming effects of the sun, so our high temperatures did not achieve forecasted results - missed the mark by about five degrees. Then the clouds reamined overnight creating a nice blanket and keeping low temperatures a bit warmer - low of only 37 at my location with a similar reading at the Birmingham airport.

Low pressure system has formed in the northwest Gulf with lots of rain in southeast Texas and southern Louisiana. It is forecast to move - and rather quickly I might add - into the Atlantic off the southeast US coast by this time tomorrow. A speedy zonal flow pattern in the upper atmosphere should take this system by us quickly and both the GFS and NAM are in good agreement on this. Precipitation amounts should be rather light for north and central Alabama. Still a risk for a wintry mix across northeast Alabama say north and east of a line from Huntsville to Anniston along with the higher elevations. But early Sunday morning the precipitation should be out of Alabama and Bob will be history.

Small respite in the weather as the new week starts and we may see a moderating trend with temperatures moving toward normal.

The GFS is advertising high pressure centered over the middle of the country by mid-week. This scenario could well suppress any Gulf low development further into the Gulf keeping it away from the coast and Alabama. And the GFS shows the third storm, Hope, to be a shadow of itself compared to what some earlier model runs depicted. I'm not certain that I'm ready to buy into this solution yet. A quick peek at the longer range European model shows some similarity to the GFS solution which tends to bolster confidence. But the forecast for Hope is still a good way into the future, so this remains a wait-and-see situation.

Advancing to Christmas day, the latest GFS shows a dry day with some clouds. And by the last day of the year, the weather pattern seems to return to a pattern much like the one on-going now with a Gulf low and the risk of wintry precipitation somewhere in the southeast. But that's definitely a "stay tuned."

As we approach Christmas, I sincerely hope that you will find the peace that the birth of Jesus Christ promised to the world and all mankind. Have a great weekend.

-Brian-