Tuesday Severe Weather Event

Tomorrow is going to be an interesting situation for the Southeast.  A large part of the U.S. is already experiencing some phenomenal winter weather from the Great Plains to the Midwest states.  Here is an image of all that is going on right now with watches and warnings. 

All the red stretching from the Chicago area all the way down to the Oklahoma City area are under a Blizzard Warning.  All of the pink that stretches from Massachusetts all the way down to New Mexico is Winter Storm Warning.  All of this is covering at least a third of the country.  Now this doesn't show the severe weather that I have been building up to.  The following image shows a convective outlook for tomorrow between 1200Z (6:00 am CST) Tuesday to 1200Z (6:00 am CST) Wednesday for the U.S. 

This shows that there is a slight risk of severe storms stretching from Houston, TX to Destin, FL and from Memphis, TN to the Gulf Coast.  This may seem very general at first, but this image can be broken down to express a better idea of what kind of weather the southern states could be experiencing with this next image.
 

This shows the probability of these storms to be severe.  15% isn't a lot, but when you spread it over a large area that is being shown with a good chance of thunderstorms covering the entire area it could amount to some storms being severe.  Keep in mind this is all a forecast and is likely to change in area coverage.  Here is the current scenario to show a point of view of how things are already set up. 
The stationary front in the Southern Great Plains along with the dry line will be moving towards the Southeast and grab a lot of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico.  Here is a forecast image of what the setup of this amazing weather event will look like at 1800Z (12:00 pm CST) Tuesday. 

It looks pretty messy which is expected out of a situation like this, but allow me to elaborate some.  Everything within the green lines is precipitation.  The symbols with a star, *, is snow; the symbol with the dot in the triangle is sleet; the symbol with the upside down triangle and a dot on top is a rain shower; and the other symbols that are ahead of the cold fronts that are hard to explain are thunderstorms.  The pink dash line indicates the freezing degree line where the temperatures behind it are below freezing and the temperatures ahead of it are above freezing.  Since I am mainly sticking to the southern states where the severe weather is, I will show forecasted rainfall amounts for 00Z Tuesday (6:00 pm CST Monday) to 00Z Wednesday (6:00 pm CST Tuesday). 
If you remember the area where the slight risk of severe weather is you can see that the amount of rainfall for the southern states will range from a half of an inch along the coast to as much as about 1.5 inches around Memphis, TN.  This is a lot of rain that will likely fall.  The final thing to talk about that is just as amazing as the precipitaion is the temperatures.  Here are the forecasted highs for the U.S. on Tuesday. 

The smooth green colors is the approximate location of the fronts.  Cold front is most likely going to stretch from south-central Texas into Arkansas and the warm front will likely stretch from northeastern Arkansas to eastern Kentucky with a stationary front curving down into northern Georgia and turning back into a warm front at the North Carolina/Virginia border.  Now with these really warm temps in the Southeast and the very cold temps pushing down into The Great Plains will create a powerful clash of warm air and cold air creating some strong to possible severe thunderstorms along the cold front.  Now look at the temps forecasted after the low pressure system pushes eastward. 

You can now see a lot of cold air covering about 70% of the country esp. behind the cold front.  This is the arctic air that was behind this low pressure system.  The frontal boundary that I mentioned before is now in Georgia and in the western portions of the Carolina's and does not have as strong of a temperature difference in such a short period of time as it did before and all the states, MS, LA and TX coast, are below freezing.  This just goes to show how impressive and how strong of a low pressure system this is.

This is just a general overview of what is likely to come for Tuesday into Wednesday.  As Wednesday begins to kick off I will update all the imformation as it starts to come in to keep everyone posted and up-to-date on what to lookout for.

Tuesday/Wednesday Winter Weather Event Forecast

Last week the big talk was what will happen today and Tuesday. As today arrived, the days and times of this winter event has changed and moved into Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. That being said, the main focus will be on the details of the winter event, as of right now, and a brief forecast for the rest of the week for the Southeast.

Since today, Monday, is almost over, the high and low will not matter now and will focus on what will happen for the rest of today. The skies will remain mostly cloudy for MS, AL, and TN and becoming partly cloudy in GA. As the day comes closer to an end, cloudy skies will be moving into MS and gradually moving into MS and TN. Rain will be moving into southwest MS and continuing to move towards the NE eventually covering southern and central MS and southwest AL.

Tuesday is when all of the weather fun starts. Rain will be scattered all over MS and AL around mid-morning when everyone is getting up to go to work and school. It will remain as a moderate rain throughout the day. The rain will start to move out of southern MS and AL by 7pm as it continues to move towards the northeast. Some wintry precip will likely start falling in northern MS as the day comes to an end. TN will likely start off by seeing mixed precip throughout the morning, turn into rain in the afternoon, and turn back into mixed precip in the evening to the late night hours. GA will begin to see statewide scattered showers in the late morning hours and will continue throught the rest of the day. The extreme northern portions of GA will likely see some mix precip. esp. in higher elevations. MS will see a high ranging from the low 40's in the far northwest corner of the state to the mid 50's along the coast with a low ranging from the low 30's in the northwest corner to the low 40's along the coast. AL will see a high ranging from the upper 40's in the extreme northeast corner of the state to the mid 50's along the coast and a low ranging from the mid 30's in the northern part of the state to the mid 40's in some central parts like Montgomery and along the coast. TN will see a high ranging from the low 40's along the Mississippi River to the mid-to-upper 40's along the AL border and along I-75 to the northeast cornere of the state and a low ranging from the low 20's in the extreme northeast part of the state around Bristol to the mid 30's along the MS border. GA will see a low ranging from the upper 20's in the extreme northern counties of the state to the upper 40's along the GA coast and a high ranging from the upper 30's in the northern counties in higher elevation to the mid-to-upper 60's in the extreme southeast part of the state.

Wednesday will be the day of Southeastern wintry precip.  This is the important and yet tricky part of the forecast because of the timing.  Here are some good estimate timings of the wintry precip. from beginning to end: central and northern MS - between 9pm Tues. to 9am Wed.; central and northern AL - between 2am Wed. to12pm Wed.; TN - 3pm Tues. to 3am Wed. for western TN, between 3am Wed. to 12pm Wed. for central TN, and between 3am to 9pm for eastern TN (depending on elevation where orographic lifting will extend the length of time); northern GA - 12pm Wed. to 6pm Wed. for northern GA.  Now keep in mind these are estimated times based upon current model forecasts.  The times prior the wintry precip will be all rain.  Now on to the temperatures.  The lows in MS will range from the upper 20's in the extreme northwest corner of the state to near 40 degrees F along the coast and highs will range from near 40 degrees F in the northern parts of the state to the mid 50's along the coast.  The lows for AL will range from the low 30's in the northern part of the state to the low 40's in the extreme southeast and coastal locations like Dauphin Island, Orange Beach, and Gulf Shores and highs will range from the low 40's in the norther part of the state and upper 30's for the higher elevations in the extreme northeast and mid 50's along the coast.  The lows for TN will range from mid 20's in the western part of the state to the low 30's in the southeastern part of the state (which will happen near midnight of Wednesday) and highs will range from the mid 30's in the northwestern part of the state to the low-to-mid 40's in the eastern part of the state.  Finally, the lows for GA will range from upper 20's/lower 30's in the northern part of the state to the mid-to-upper 40's in the southwestern part of the state and along the coastal edges of the state such as Tybee Island and the highs will range from the low 40's in the northern part of the state to the mid 60's along the extreme southeastern part of the state.

That pretty much concludes my forecast discussion for this winter event with great detail of the Southeast.  I will update this Tuesday Jan. 25th for further updates.  If you would like to have more details about a certain location and/or state then please let me know and I will gladly supply you with the information you want.

Thursday Night/Friday Southeast Winter Event Update.

Previously I mentioned that things are just not adding up to make this a memorable snow event.  As the time has gotten closer to the actual event this is proving to be more true.  Here is the synopsis on it and the reasons why this is proving to be more of a rain event for most of The South.  Temperatures right now for The Southeast Region are ranging from the mid-30's in the northern portions of AL, MS, and GA to the mid-50's in the southern potions of the states.  A cold front is already in central MS and northern AL and continuing to push towards the east-southeast.  Precipitation is stretching from southeast LA thru southern and eastern MS thru central and northern AL and further north in central and eastern TN.  The snow is being experienced in northern AL and most of TN.  The rest of it is all rain.  What this is saying is that where the snow is being experienced is where the cold front has already passed through and sending in the cold air to allow the snow to fall.

Now to tell the reason why the wintry precip isn't going to be as far south as once forecasted.  There is a lot of cold air that is behind the cold front and will drop temperatures low enough for snow to fall, but most of the precip. is ahead of the cold front and gradually dissipating behind the cold front.  This means that most places in The Southeast, with the exceptiong of TN and northern AL, will just see rain and thats it.  Northern AL could see up to a half inch of snow and that is about it.  TN, however, could see as much as 3 inches in some places like along the Cumberland Plateau.  Some people might worry about ice accumulation like the last winter event we had in The Southeast Region.  Ice will not be a worry what so ever either because temperatures have been warm enough to keep the ground from freezing even with the falling temps. from the cold front.

Overall, have no worries for all the people in The South.  Rain will be all of your worries for tonight and into Friday.  Tennessee will see multiple school and business closures due the amount of snow likely to fall.  There will, however, be another winter event pushing into The South Sunday into Monday.  That is far enough in the future where there are a lot of uncertainties to it such as how far south the low pressure will push, where the freezing temperature line will be, and how much precip. of both frozen and liquid types will fall.  I will update more information about this next winter event as it gets closer.

Thursday/Friday Winter Weather Event

We have reached another week with some more wintry weather, but this time it's more about the precipitation than very cold temperatures.  The jet stream is once again near the Gulf Coast, but further north than last time when snow was forecasted for the Southeast.  This will help direct low pressure systems to move towards the Southeast and come close to the Gulf Coast and move off into the Atlantic Ocean.  The southern portions of Mississippi and Alabama will not experience any wintry precipitation, but the central portions of the states have a chance of wintry precip. and the northern portions have a much better chance for snow.  The most northern counties of MS are already under a winter weather advisory which is already forecasting for the possibility of 1 to 2 inches of snow to accumulate.  For that to really happen there will have to be a lot of snow falling and very cold temperatures to really cool the ground enough for the snow to stick and accumulate.  According to Jackson NWS, the central portions of MS are going to see a wintry mix that is rain changing into sleet and then snow.  According to Birmingham NWS, the snowfall line is alonge I-85 towards Montgomery and westward with the accumulation line to be from I-20 and northward.

There is a lot that is forecasted, but a lot of uncertainty to it as well.  After looking at various forecast models the winter event isn't looking to be all that it is being hyped up to be.  All that is needed to make this event to be a reasonable winter event isn't adding up.  Both the GFS and NAM/WRF are all agreeing that the moisture is there, but not for snow.  The precip is ahead of the freezing temperature line in the atmosphere and at the surface.  What little moisture near the surface that remains at freezing and below does not last long and is mainly focused for the northern counties of MS and AL.  The amount of wintry precip. looks to be very little.  NOAA, which does pretty good for forecasting, agrees for the most part that the frozen precip. is going to stay north of Highway 85 in MS and AL and north of I-20.  NOAA does however show some possibility that between midnight on Thursday to 7am Friday morning that a wintry precip. could reach into the central portions of MS and AL.  If that is the case then any sort of frozen precip. that falls in those regions will not last long and will not create any trouble for peoples travels on Friday morning.  The reason for a lot of this is because of the warm temperatures that have been seen across the Southeast.  Temps in the upper 40's and low- to mid-50's in northern and central parts of MS and AL for the past several days will definitely prohibit accumulation of any wintry precip.  Although the temperatures will fall below freezing from Thursday night into Friday morning it will not make much difference with the actual ground temperature.

Overall, This is looking to be more of a snow event for the Tennessee River Valley areas and a rain event souther from there.  Another blog will be introduced for further updates about the upcoming winter event.

Near Record Breaking Lows for the South

Today we hit our high of around 36°F which is a big step up from the day before where we didn't even reach above freezing.  Just when you thought we were about to get out of the subfreezing temperatures we have one more night to really deal with.  The counties that surround Highway 82 in Mississippi, the southern/coastal counties of Mississippi, and all of central and southern Alabama counties are under a Hard Freeze Warning.  The duration of this warning depends upon your location, but for the coastal counties it will end at 8am, for southern counties it will end at 9am, and for the northern counties of the Hard Freeze Warning it will end at 10am Friday morning.

Now time to get to the meat of the topic.  The lows for Friday are going to be record breaking for some places and near record breaking for other places.  The border line of record breaking and near record breaking will be based upon various factors that could allow that to happen or to not allow it to happen at all.  In general, I am talking about radiational cooling.  All radiational cooling is is the earth cooling itself at its maximum.  How this happens is by two very important factors: calm winds and clear skies.  We can step outside and see that we have clear skies and this is spread out over the Mississippi and Alabama.  Thats the first half of radiational cooling.  The second half is the more difficult factor to get.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, most of Alabama and some of Mississippi will be experiencing these calm conditions.  Since some places will be experiencing the right conditions for radiational cooling then we could see some records being broke.  I am going to make a list of some of the locations that are in the hard freeze warning and tell you the record, forecasted low, and likely low.

Location                      Record Low         Forecasted Low          Likely Low
Greenwood, MS          13°F(1963)                  17°F                         16°F
McComb, MS             17°F(1964)                  20°F                         18°F
Gulfport, MS               18°F(1982)                  22°F                         22°F
Birmingham, AL           13°F(1963)                 14°F                          12°F
Montgomery, AL         20°F(1964)                  18°F                         16°F
Camden, AL                13°F(1975)                  18°F                         18°F
Evergreen, AL             12°F(1981)                  18°F                         19°F
Dothan, AL                  15°F(1962)                 21°F                         22°F
Mobile, AL                  20°F(1964)                  20°F                         21°F
Baton Rouge, LA         20°F(1964)                 23°F                          22°F

Just by looking at the records and possible forecasts most of the places will not reach a record low.  Although, McComb, Mobile, Baton Rouge, and Birmingham will be lingering around the record low.  Birmingham has a good chance to tie its record low, but also likely to break it.  Montgomery is the one that is certain to break its record low.  The forecast low is by some interpretations of forecast models which is already going to be colder than the record low.  With the effect of radiational cooling, which is what the likely low is based on, will give it the probability of making it cooler.

There will be other, smaller locations that have local weather observers that have a good chance of experiencing record breaking lows tonight.  Overall, when it comes to freeze warnings for your area keep in mind that the conditions of the winds and the sky will help determine how cold the air will be.

First Wx Blog for Starkville

Starkville is going to experience very cold temps tonight into the early morning hours of Thursday all the way down to nearly 17 degrees F.  Thursday will warm up a little more than than today to above freezing temperatures, but will drop once again to another very cold night into the mid-teens.  Friday will really be the beginning of the warmer weekend with highs hitting around the mid-40's.