Another cold night

We will have one more cold night before the slight warmup begins tomorrow. Lows tonight will be in the mid 30s in most areas, but the cold spots will be in the upper 20s and lower 30s.

Wednesday will start out sunny, but clouds will be moving in during the afternoon hours. Highs will be warmer, in the lower 60s.

Rain will move into the area Thursday morning, and there is a chance of thunderstorms as well. The Storm Prediction Center has outlooked all of Alabama under a slight risk for Thursday. Stay tuned as I will be updating the forecast as we draw nearer. I haven't had a good chance to look at model data the past couple days as I have been busy with house repairs and late season yardwork.
Again, I apologize for the lack of posts lately, but I have been out doing my last yardwork of the year, and other stuff around the house. I will post another update in the morning with how cold it got.

Have a good night.

Another Rainy, Dreary Day

Well, it has been another sleeping day here in northwest Alabama. A low pressure area and associated cold front has produced widespread light to moderate rain across all of north Alabama. Here at my location the rain is finally coming to a end. My total rainfall for the day stands at 0.90". I'm still awaiting the arrival of the cold front. By looks of radar and current surface maps, it is just to my west. Temps drop off into the upper 40s as you go northwestward to Jackson, TN.

The rain will move out of the area for everybody later this evening, but cloudy skies will stay with us the remainder of the night. Expect low temps by morning to be in the upper 40s to lower 50s across the area.

Friday will start out cloudy, but we will see clearing skies as the morning progresses. Afternoon highs will be on the cool side, in the lower 60s.



It will be cool for the Friday night football games tomorrow night, so take a jacket with you. The temps will drop rapidly after sunset with clear skies. Look for temps to be in the upper 50s for kickoff, dropping into the upper 40s to lower 50s by the end of the game. Lows by Saturday morning will be in the upper 30s to near 40 in most locations.

We will see a warmup on Saturday with partly cloudy skies before the next front moves in on Sunday. Highs Saturday will be near 70º, with lows Saturday night in the lower 50s. I did include a slight chance of showers on Sunday with the passage of the next front. Moisture looks limited at this point, but know Sunday's rain chances are subject to change. The front that moves through on Sunday will be stronger than the one moving through this evening, and high temps on Monday might not reach 60º in some spots. Monday night and Tuesday night look to be cold, with lows in the 35-40 degree range. Of course the colder locations like Black Creek in Etowah county (hey Vic!) will likely be in the upper 20s and lower 30s with frost.

Here is a look at the 7 Day Planner from yours truly....


Stay tuned to the forecast as things are subject to change with the cold front moving in on Sunday. Temps may not be as cold as I'm forecasting, but then again they may be a bit colder depending on the strength of the storm system.

Everyone have a great night and I will post another update in the morning.

Dense Fog Advisory...

...In effect for all of Alabama until 9am. Visibilities are down to a quarter mile or less in most areas this morning, so allow extra time for driving this morning. Here's what it looked like out my window this morning just after 8am..
http://bamaweather.com/wx/florence/forecast/drewcam.jpg

Look for partly cloudy and warm conditions today after the fog burns off. Highs will be in the 80s this afternoon. Clouds will be on the increase tonight ahead of a cold front that will be moving through tomorrow. I will have a detailed extended forecast discussion a little later this morning when I have more time to look at the models. Until then, here is a glance of the 7 day planner I put together this morning.
http://bamaweather.com/wx/florence/forecast/10185day.png

No Weather Update Tonight

I'm feeling under the weather, and I have a job interview early in the morning, so I'm getting to bed early tonight. Next weather discussion will be posted by noon tomorrow.

Partly cloudy and warm

The skies have cleared across northwest Alabama this afternoon, and temps have jumped into the upper 70s. It would feel nice outside, but the dewpoint is very high-currently at 68º. This is giving us a heat index of 81º (I thought we were done talking about heat index for this year!).

It looks like it will continue to be partly cloudy this afternoon and on the warm side for highs. I'm expecting high temps around 80º, but maybe a bit warmer for areas that see more sunshine.

Tonight will be mostly clear and mild. There may be areas of dense fog developing after midnight due to all the rain we saw and radiational cooling. Keep that in mind for the morning commute tomorrow.

Tomorrow looks to be a partly cloudy and warm day, with afternoon temps even higher. Highs will be in the mid and possibly upper 80s.

Another cold front will move through the area on Thursday bringing a chance of showers and thunderstorms with it. I'm not expecting a lot of rain, but we may see a strong storm or two depending on what time of the day the front moves into the area.

Quieter Weather Today...

We are waking up to cloudy and foggy conditions this morning, with light rain still falling outside as I type this. It is much warmer than it was yesterday and last night thanks to the warm front that moved through the area. The winds were the strongest just before midnight, when I recorded my gust of 28mph. A heavy line of rain moved in around 1:30am, and this lasted about a hour. The winds backed off dramatically when the heavy rain moved in. My max gust after midnight was 20mph.

Overall, it was a very wet and windy storm system, and was very similiar to what Hurricane Katrina's conditions when it blew through this area last year.

My storm total rainfall stands at 1.92" now. 0.99" of that yesterday and 0.93" today (still raining).

I'm hoping we see some sunshine later this afternoon so I can get out and clean up the yard which is full of sticks, small branches, and tons of leaves.

Insane Winds!

Well, the storm system has arrived with a vengenance. The winds are howling like they did when Hurricane Katrina and Ivan moved through this area. My max gust has been 25mph, but the station at FPD has a 45mph gust. There is a major power outage that is affecting North Florence, and all of northern and western Lauderdale county. I'm hearing on the scanner they are hoping to have that resolved within the hour. There are many trees down across roadways, and also across cars. The best thing to do is just stay home tonight. Radar still shows the huge blob of heavy rain and storms across north central MS, but I'm beginning to wonder if it will make it to us. It has been weakening all night as it nears us. There is also a Tornado Watch right up to Tishomingo county, which is only 1 county west of us.

Hunker down and ride out the rain and winds tonight, and I'll post another update in the morning after all this moves out with the final rainfall and wind readings.

Currently 58º
Dewpoint 56º
Wind SE 12 G 20
Barometer 29.67" and falling
Rainfall 0.94"

Heavy Rain and Wind...

The heavy rainfall has moved into the Shoals area, along with very strong gusty winds. The wind is from the E and ESE, and that's the only direction that trees obstruct my wind readings. The highest gust I've had so far is 19mph. The Times Daily weathernet station which is about 4 blocks north of me has had a max wind of ESE 26. The Florence Police Station also has a weather station that is online, and as I'm typing this the wind is SE 12 gusting to 30 there (this station is about 2 blocks east of my house). It's just a constant roar outside with the wind whipping through the trees. I've picked up 0.85" rain so far, with lots more to come. I just noticed the latest METAR from Muscle Shoals has a SE wind at 24 gusting to 32.

The huge blob of heavy rain that is still over central MS is headed our direction. I will post more later tonight as this nears the area.

Wow, Monday morning at it's worst

Well, I'm not one of those people that hate Monday's. This morning however was extremely hard to get out of bed. It's raining outside, and 50º. Anyways the forecast looks interesting as we go throughout the day today, and especially tonight into the morning hours on Tuesday. A strong low pressure area is west of us, and is producing widespread light to moderate rain over our area this morning, with a cluster of heavy rain and severe storms over the gulf coast areas of Texas and Louisiana. I am wondering if we will be put under a Flash Flood Watch later today for tonight and tomorrow. Just checking my station right now and I've picked up 0.38" of rain so far this morning.

Stay tuned as I will be posting updates throughout the day and into the night as this event unfolds. Now...time for some more caffiene...

Bedtime

Well, Auburn ended up winning that ended up being a great game. I'm anxious to see the top 25 when it comes out tomorrow. My night was rather uneventful. I went and picked up Anne Marie from work, then we came back home and finished watching the Auburn game. She brought home some delicious cinnamon chips from work. They had honey and chocolate dripped on them and were SO good.

Well, it's bedtime for me. I gotta get up early in the morning for church, and I didn't sleep good last night for the cats keeping me awake.

Yall have a good night.

I love you Anne Marie!!

My first post on the new blog...

Hey everybody. I'm just testing out this new format for my blog. I had another one in the past, but it was lost somewhere along the way.

Today has been a pretty good day. Alabama won! woohoo!! They went into overtime and I was scared to death because Alabama isn't the greatest team in OT. They were able to pull off the win over Ole Miss, 26 to 23.

I'm getting ready to watch Florida at Auburn which promises to be a awesome game. I picked Auburn to win, so they better not let me down again like they did last week.

Stay tuned to my life...more updates to come.