Archive for the ‘Winter Weather’ Category

The Alabama Storm Trackers and the LiveStormsNOW.com crew were on the road today in search of snowfall across North Alabama.  We found it on Monte Sano as the upper level low swung across.  Snowfall was very isolated, but we did encounter some heavier bursts.  Around 1” of snow did accumulate before all melting once it ended.  Brett Adair, David Ruffini, and Tommy Self were in attendance for the events.

Looking into the potential for another deep south snow threat beginning tonight and going into the daytime tomorrow.  After going over one of our higher resolution and more reliable short term models this evening….it certainly looks like we will see some flakes flying.  Let’s get into it…

Here is the modeled reflectivity for around 9am tomorrow morning.  You can see a pretty intense shield of precipitation across TN/N MS and N AL.  This area will most likely be in the form of snow as an upper level low pressure area moves across the region.  Very cold temperatures aloft will likely allow this precip to stay in the form of snow through most of the day light hours underneath the low. 

Here is the accumulated snowfall through 9am tomorrow.  The HRRR (High Resolution Rapid Refresh) model is showing some 2-3” totals along the AR/TN/MS border area with more snow still falling at a moderate pace.  You can see the model is showing accumulations sneaking into the picture across North Mississippi and Northwest Alabama during the same time frame.  The snow should just be entering NW sections of Alabama by this time.  We will monitor the trends and progression of this.

We will likely be deploying in the early AM hours for North Alabama to stream somewhere near Monte Sano during the snow event.  This event could drop some couple of inches on the higher elevations across Tennessee and maybe North Alabama.  This will be a situation you will want to pay attention to.  Click the Brett Adair and Eric Parker tab on LiveStormsNOW.com for live video during the event tomorrow.

We are now monitoring after some run to run consistency from the forecast models over the last few days of some snow potential for portions of North Alabama on Monday and into Tuesday with a powerful upper level low pressure area that is projected to move across the region.  The morning run of the GFS still pains some accumulating snowfall for places across North Alabama…such as the Shoals area….of nearly 3-5”.  Again, this is accumulating snowfall and not necessarily what falls.  Therefore, I feel that we may get a heavier band of snow across sections of N MS, AL and TN during this period.  More later on…

Well….it looks like we are getting toward that time of the year folks where severe storms of the convective and winter variety will roam the US.  This weekend is no different.  Global models are indicating a strong trough ejecting out of the Rockies and moving across the central/northern plain states while beginning to take a negative tilt.  As of late, GFS trends indicate that instability values on the warm side of this system will be rather low due to limited moisture except along the far southern end of the front in parts of Texas.  It looks like some isolated severe storms could be possible mainly with wind being the problem in the form of downbursts along the front since the higher wind shear values will remain well north of the region.  Even though limited instability is present…we could see a cold core setup for some funnel/weak tornado formation further north across NE KS/MO/SE NE where the colder upper level setup will be in place along wiith high wind shear values.  Instability could be maximized in this region given the cold temps aloft so this is a situation we will need to closely monitor.  Elsewhere along the frontal boundary…a line of low topped showers/convection will be likely along the boundary itself.  Don’t expect a ton of severe weather unless instability values increase.  However, as we all know it doesn’t take much this time of the year so we will watch it.

Further north….in the cold sector of the storm a pretty hefty winter event will be in store for portions of the Dakotas, northern Nebraska, and Minnesota. Snowfall amounts in excess of 4″ will be likely just NW of the surface low track that is expected to move from the KC metro toward portions of SE Minnesota. There will be significant snows in portions of the region, but we will conintue to monitor the situation before putting out some kind of map on this.  

There is some potential that we could have chasers in the field if this ends up being more severe than we expect.  Check back for frequent updates as we monitor the situation.

Well, we didn’t get to update as much as would have liked here for the snow event, but we were working on the Bama Camera Network.  This wasn’t an overly major event, but everyone saw a decent snowfall from it across Central Alabama.  Here is the forecast map the we created before the event…

The forecast map actually lined up pretty well with the totals that we experienced over the last 24 hours.  Given that the event wasn’t long duration….things were forecast pretty good by the shorter term guidance and the various forecast offices and television meteorologists.

The heavier snow bands setup across West Alabama and then transitioned to south of I-20 as heavier precipitation spread northward as our mid level vorticity max swing out and enhanced things a bit.  Be advised that we are also working on our graphics and different logos for the site so you may see some tests on our products. 

One of our viewers, Bret Causey, of Clay County took the pictures below from Bull Gap mountain on HWY-148 near the Clay/Talladega County line. 

The images were beautiful and a few inches of snow still remains on the ground at the top of the mountain.  Temperatures are expected to remain close to freezing today before the major warming trend begins on Friday. 

Here is an awesome panoramic shot of the mountain from Alabama Storm Tracker, Eric Parker.

If you have snow shots from your given location…please feel free to send them in and we will get them on the blog.  Now that the snow event is over with….expect a warming trend in the near future. 

Well, an interesting setup is evolving across portions of Louisiana, Mississippi, and south Alabama this evening and over the next 48 hours.  A shallow layer of cold air will hamper forecasts area wide and will set the stage for sleet, freezing rain, and even snowfall along the northern edge of the precip mass expected to develop.  Some precipitation has reached the ground across south Mississippi and Alabama this evening with sleet being reported across parts of Jackson County, MS and Mobile County, AL.  Heavier areas of winter wx are expected to begin developing later on tonight and the shield will expand northward toward the Jackson and Birmingham metro areas into Thursday.

There is a problem evident across several locations for precip this evening given it’s light nature.  The soundings indicate a decent amount of drying in the lower levels of the atmopshere.  Here is the sounding from Slidell, LA.

You can see the temperature (red) and dewpoint (green) lines separate down the 850 – 925mb levels begin to separate pretty significantly.  This indicates drier air at these levels and the rainfall will have to moisten up this part of the column via evaporation before we can see any appreciable precipitation at the surface.  A little further north…..the Birmingham, AL sounding shows this well also.

This will be something we have to watch in our area for some freezing rain, sleet, or even snow across Central Alabama.  Tonight, sleet and freezing rain will be possible south of I-85.  The heavier precip comes for us tomorrow.  Stay tuned…

Our current high resolution radar shows some lighter showers spreading into the area this hour with the bulk of the rainfall staying south of I-20 where it has remained most of the day.  It looks like some showery activity can be expected for the rest of the night across most of the area with the heaviest rainfall staying to the south.  This will begin to taper off during the day on Monday and give way to mostly cloudy skies.

The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma has issued there latest day 2 convective outlook for Tuesday.  The threat has expanded some to the west and they mention higher instability values potentially being present as temperatures are a big warmer on current model runs for the Mississippi area.  There is now mention of rotating storms with a highly sheared low level environment and the potential for a couple of super cell thunderstorms across LA/MS during this time.  We are going to upgrade our chase status to MODERATE for the likelihood of chasing across the Jackson metro area on Tuesday.  Continue to monitor the blog concerning this as things may change before Tuesday.

Now….we won’t talk much about it but the models are starting to pick up on something pretty big for the weekend.  This is the Canadian model that has performed pretty good in the longer range this winter….and it shows some Winter mischief across Mississippi and Alabama in the form of ice and snow on Saturday.  We will fine tune things before then, but the idea is definitely on the table.

Our ULL is moving out and our forecast thoughts were generally in line with the idea of snow being pretty meager even across North Alabama this morning.  It turns out Huntsville and Monte Sano only received a dusting of snow.  Also, heard reports of freezing rain and sleet in that area.  The idea of the snow growth region being dried out a while was correct too.

As for today….a wind advisory is in effect for eastern sections of our area due to a tightening surface gradient to our east.  This will bring some windy conditions east of I-65 with gusts over 25 mph being possible at times.  At least the sun is coming in with the wind this time. 

We expect a quiet few days with lows in the 20’s during the overnight and highs into the 40’s thru Thursday.  Another big shot of cold air looks to be on the table around the first of February along with some wintery mischief.  We will have to watch that because things change rapidly around here as we have seen this winter in terms of snow and ice.  Have a great Wednesday!

Winter Storm Warnings have been issued by the National Weather Service offices in Memphis, Nashville, and Huntsville for most of there counties.  Memphis covered there western counties with Winter Weather Advisories for lesser amounts of snowfall.  I have some agreements and disagreements with some of these advisories…..and I will get into those after looking at the latest and forecast output.  To the maps….

Our upper level system is still digging to the west over portions of Texas at this hour.  The trough has yet to close over, but with very significant vort surrounding the system and indications of deepening….this should happen over the next several hours to our west.  You can see that the flow out of this level is out of the SW…..which will bring me to another key point.

You can see our developing upper low that I have marked to the west….but this is overlaid on current water vapor imagery.  The yellow colors indicate large mid level drying occurring to our SW and now intruding into Mississippi and west Alabama.  This will play havoc with the moisture column in the mid levels and likely dry out a good portion of the snow growth zone….at least for a while until the main low pressure system moves overhead….if it ends up moving across North Alabama.  The latest high res model runs indicate this happening somewhat. 

Here is the upper level low at 6AM on the WRF-ARW model.  This is a high resolution model that seems to be handling things pretty well in terms of the synoptic and low levels…along with precip fields so I will stick with it.  The core of the ULL goes right along the Tennessee border.  Usually, the highest QPF (accumulated precip.) is to the northwest and southeast of an upper level system.  The heaviest snow axis per this run should run from east of Memphis to Nashville to southern Kentucky.

Here is the 3hr precip forecast for the same time frame.  I have overlaid my “Heavy Snow Axis” over the model where I think the heaviest amounts will occur.  Given the model output and soundings, I think it is safe to say that Nashville could see upwards of 3-6” of accumulating snowfall….with maybe a 7” total somewhere.  The most likely place to see any heavy accumulating snowfall in Alabama will be the highest terrain in Northeast Alabama and the Shoals area.  I’m skeptical about NE AL because they could get dry slotted being in the SE quad of the upper level low as it is pivoting.  In other words….places like Skyline and Jackson County could be left dry.

The old saying is…”Upper Level Low, Weatherman’s Woe” and that could prove to be the case this time.  There is extreme difficulty in forecasting the dynamics and thermal profiles with these kind of systems…..along with precipitation fields.  This forecast looks pretty good as of now and I will stick with it.  So, I just don’t see the Huntsville counties verifying warning criteria snowfall…..but I hope you do!

We will post more updates throughout the evening as conditions deteriorate or warrant…

Latest radar imagery shows the rainfall spreading eastward out of Mississippi at this hour into portions of West-Central Alabama.  Tuscaloosa and Jasper stations are reporting light rain at this hour with temperatures in the mid to upper 40’s.  Frozen precipitation will not be a problem tonight.  It looks like a good soaking is in store for the next 24 hours over much of the area as the upper and surface low pressure systems get their act together to our west.

This evening…..the model data extractions are showing the best snow potential to be north of US Highway 278 with accumulations possible across those areas.  The National Weather Service in Huntsville has a Winter Storm Watch up for the entire area for 2-4” snow totals with locally heavier amounts in the deformation band.  Birmingham has also put the watch up for the northern row of counties. 

I have a few obligations to take care of in the morning….but I will be updating the Bama Cam Network with our new sites just in case a surprise is in order.  It is very likely that I will be traveling northward for the snowfall across northern sections of the area.  Like toward Huntsville.