We are still looking at a rainy system coming in Tuesday with temperatures in the 40’s/50’s during that event so precipitation will remain all rain during that time frame.  Some of the rain could be locally heavy causing some of the more prone areas to deal with some slight flooding issues.  I don’t foresee this as being a huge rain maker, but 1″ or rain is possible.

Now, to the main feature during the period.  Morning guidance has came in alot wetter than some of the previous packages.  We are looking at a situation where cold air will blow in after the Tuesday system.  Another southern stream wave will begin to organize over Texas by late Wednesday into Thursday and allow for surface pressure falls and rain to spread over the Texas area into the Gulf.  As of now, our temperature profiles are beginning to look cold enough that we could deal with some snowfall across portions of Central/North Alabama especially on Friday.  We’ll post a couple of model images below…

This is Friday evening at 6PM.  The Operational GFS model is showing a well defined surface low pressure system about 60 miles south of Pensacola with widespread rain north of the system.  The surface freezing axis runs from about Jackson – Clanton – Atlanta on this run.  There are a couple of other models that are showing this area being below freezing as well.  Current indications are that this area could remain all snow throughout the duration of the storm system.  *IF* this model were to verify….this would be winter storm criteria with some folks seeing a 6″+ snowfall possibly.  As I have said many times, this is just speculation right now but the cards are on the table.

Above are the GFS Ensemble plots for the same time frame.  We use these to note basically if a system is there and if it could be of the winter/spring variety or not.  What I can take from this is that most of the ensemble plots show that it will be a wet system and the freezing line will be near by.  Therefore, all in all confidence is increased because of this.  Most plots are showing a pretty major storm system organizing in the northern Gulf….which follows suit with the operational GFS model.  A few other models…(Canadian/European/FIM) are also showing a system and the cold air in place, so the time to start preparing is coming pretty quickly. 

While we won’t be able to give a more specific forecast until around Wednesday….we are thinking that there will be wintery weather across our state as we head into next weekend.  Stay tuned with us for further updates as we approach this potential winter storm situation.