Christmas Time Is Here

The Monday morning map discussion video is on the server:

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

"Christmas time is here
Happiness and cheer
Fun for all that children call
Their favorite time of the year..."

I think we were actually one of the first "top 40" radio stations in the nation to play that on the air way back in the 1970s (the BIG 1230, WTBC in Tuscaloosa).

Something about that original Charlie Brown Christmas show still makes it special today. Probably the fact that the real meaning of Christmas is revealed in the script... something that would never happen today in our politically correct sea of insanity.

HOPE: The storm we named HOPE a week ago is producing a wintry mess over west Oklahoma, the Texas Panhandle, and northeast New Mexico this morning, where winter weather advisories are in effect. It will swing across the deep south tomorrow night.

While the storm is on the board and shows up nicely in the progs, there is very little moisture to work with. Hard to squeeze blood out of a turnip, you know. We might have a few flurries tomorrow night. You will probably have to look pretty hard to fine them.

Hope will take the shape of a nice surface low east of Florida on Wednesday, but the system pretty much stays out to sea.

Colder air moves into the state in the wake of Hope; we should be well down in the 20s both Wednesday and Thursday morning. As usual, the GFS MOS looks way too warm. It is spitting out the usual 50s/30s.

Temperatures will warm up at the end of the week; we might be flirting with 60 by Friday.

CHRISTMAS WEEKEND: A fairly strong wave will roll through the state on Saturday with a chance of rain at times. Then, that wave sharpens the long wave trough over the eastern U.S. again on Christmas Day and we begin to turn colder again.

That eastern U.S. trough should hold between Christmas and New Years... keeping temperatures here below normal. Should be pretty cold, in fact.

See the video for a look at the Arctic Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation charts for the next 15 days... and how they might impact our weather.

THIS WEEK: I will be working a fairly routine schedule this week, although I will be doing mornings at WZZK for Johnson and Johnson Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I know many of you are headed out of town... be careful and have a very merry Chrisytmas. I will be taking next week off... away from maps and computers to spend some quality time with the family.

The next map discussion video will be ready by 3:30 this afternoon...