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.