Sunday, February 2, 2025

A Couple Sunny, Warm Days/Then Unsettled Pattern Later In Week

FORECAST:

Monday (High 71, Low 42): Sunny. Warm.

Tuesday (High 73, Low 50): Mostly sunny. Warm.

Wednesday (High 75, Low 56): Partly cloudy with widely scattered showers and thunderstorms possible throughout the day. Rain showers will become more numerous at night. 

EXTENDED OUTLOOK:

Thursday (High 74, Low 62): Thunderstorms likely - a few could be strong. 

Friday (High 69, Low 54): Partly to mostly sunny with a 20% chance of showers. 

Saturday (High 73, Low 53): Partly cloudy with a 30% chance of showers/a thunderstorm.

Sunday (High 70, Low 55): Partly to mostly cloudy with a 40% chance of showers/a thunderstorm.

PRONÓSTICO:

Lunes (Máxima 71, Mínima 42): Soleado. Cálido.

Martes (Máxima 73, Mínima 50): Mayormente soleado. Cálido.

Miércoles (Máxima 75, Mínima 56): Parcialmente nublado con lluvias muy dispersas y tormentas eléctricas posibles durante el día. Las lluvias serán más numerosas por la noche.

PERSPECTIVA EXTENDIDA:

Jueves (Máxima 74, Mínima 62): Tormentas eléctricas probables, algunas podrían ser fuertes.

Viernes (Máxima 69, Mínima 54): Parcialmente a mayormente soleado con un 20 % de probabilidad de lluvias.

Sábado (Máxima 73, Mínima 53): Parcialmente nublado con un 30 % de probabilidad de lluvias/tormentas eléctricas.

Domingo (Máxima 70, Mínima 55): Parcialmente a mayormente nublado con un 40 % de probabilidad de lluvias/tormentas eléctricas.

NOTES:

The next physical SKYWARN class is tomorrow evening at 6 PM in Fayetteville, Tennessee. Severe Weather Awareness Day will be February 22, Saturday in Nashville. And there are online storm spotter classes for people who can't make it to these in-person events. All of them are free, but you do have to register for the SWAD or the online SKYWARN classes. 

This week is Severe Weather Awareness Week for Alabama. The spring season will be here before you know it. 

And for some reason, the last drought information statement for the Huntsville area that's showing up is from January 10. So there's the link if you want to wait on the glitch to get fixed. 

And major thanks to Coyote J. Calhoun tonight for reminding everyone that we can live without buying eggs at the grocery store. If they're expensive, hey, don't buy them, let chickens have their children . . . save the chickens . . . anybody who eats an egg is a Communist! Har har har. Except he's using dated language. The accusation now is Marxist, so don't be a Marxist, leave the chickens alone. And have no worries about the bird flu. Lord knows there's enough other sickness going around lately. 

And I guess I'll keep doing the Spanish versions of forecasts sometimes just because I like being contrary. It's not fashionable these days to say much more than, "Go back whur ye' came from!"

DISCUSSION:





It was a sunny day in the Tennessee Valley, breezy at times, and pretty warm for this time of year. We had a High of 68 in Cullman and a Low of 37. Jasper had a High of 70 and Low of 32, right down at the freezing mark this morning. Haleyville saw a High of 68 and Low of 39. 

Peeking up to our neighbors just to the North, Huntsville had a High of 67 and Low of 40. And Nashville had a High of 68, Low of 38. There were a few more fair-weather clouds up that way. 



This pattern with high pressure in place and zonal (westerly) upper-level wind flow will continue tomorrow, and we'll see another sunny day with less breeziness, just light Southwest winds at the surface. High should be about 70, Low tonight about 40 or so. 



Tuesday looks much the same, maybe more fair-weather clouds returning to the sky as we get more Southwest wind flow at the surface and even at the mid/lower levels of the atmosphere, winds out of the West/Southwest. Which brings us some Gulf moisture - some would say from the Gulf of America, but the thing is, if we start calling it that, then we can't follow George Strait's old advice to blame it on Mexico, and we'll have to start taking credit for all the hurricanes that come from there again. I find it kind of strange that the people who are so keen on the renaming of this body of water also want to blame everything on Mexico, beyond what George Strait probably ever meant in that old song. So if we totally ditch "Gulf of Mexico", just stop and think about it, now all the hurricanes are our fault again. Because it's our Gulf up this way, not Mexico's anymore. 

Anyway, seems like this page had some interesting stuff about the history of the name. Was looking at it the other day. 

After last hurricane season, I think if I was the one in charge of renaming it, I would have named it something far less flattering. 

Anyway, no hurricanes this time of year, of course, and it's really not bringing us trouble on Tuesday, just a little warmer air, a little more moisture. We'll see a High in the lower 70's, about 70-73, a Low near 50. 



We have a cold front coming in Wednesday, but it looks weak and like it will stall out just to our North, bringing more rain to Middle and Northern Tennessee up through parts of the Ohio Valley and Midwest. While a low pressure system is moving out of the Plains and up through that general region. 

So our rain chances down this way look on the lower end, about 20-30%, might pick up some at night, the coverage of rain, but during the day, a High in the mid-70's after a Low in the mid-50's. 



Then on Thursday as the front continues to move through the region, rain showers will be likely at times during the day, could also see some thunderstorms, with a High in the lower 70's and a Low of about 60 or so. 



And any time it's this warm in January and you've got storms coming in, have to watch for a few stronger storms, to be on the safe side. For now, the overall severe thunderstorm risk is looking low - not zero, but marginal. 

And the Storm Prediction Center hasn't outlined any areas for a 15% risk of anything organized like that for Thursday yet, because there's not enough evidence to. Worth keeping an eye on, especially if you live in a mobile home or are in another situation where you'd need to leave for better shelter if the weather did get ugly. We don't really get a season around here that is totally safe from such things, but our main season is in March, April, and May. 



Looks like that front will stall in Central Alabama and try to slowly move back Northward, but it just isn't looking too strong. Friday we'll see a High in about the upper 60's, Low in lower 50's, and we can cut the rain chance down to minimal in North Alabama, about 20%. 



Will bring the rain chance back to 30% for Saturday as the front makes it back across the Tennessee border probably. 



Looks like that front will still be playing footsie with our region on Sunday. 


Have a look at it on a more standard weather map instead of raw model guidance. 

Oh by the way, on Saturday with that North of us as a warm front, our Highs should get into the 70's again. On Sunday, we might not quite make it to 70, Low might be more toward the mid-50's due to more moisture, and since the front is back in motion, makes sense to raise rain chance back to 40-50% range. 

So the extended looks kind of unsettled. It's an unusual setup for January, but after that Siberian cold we had for a while . . . oh wait, and it's not even January anymore! What am I talking about? See, these seasons can move along faster than you notice sometimes. 


Rainfall totals are tricky in a setup like this, but best estimate from the Weather Prediction Center is up to about a quarter-inch for most of North Alabama, more like a half-inch near the AL/TN state line, and then you have to go up into Middle Tennessee to see many amounts up to a full inch or greater. 

Not convinced we have any organized severe weather on Thursday, but in case we were to get an isolated stronger storm somewhere, remember the basic idea: Get into a small interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy house or other strong building, try not to be caught in a mobile home or something else that's vulnerable to winds, like a house sitting up on blocks. 


CHATTER:

Well, the news certainly hasn't been boring lately. I could express condolences about that airline crash, but it turned ultra-political even faster than I remember the Sandy Hook shooting turning that way in 2012. Which says it all for me. Sad stuff. 

I saw where Jewel, the great folk singer who used to be tough as nails, made a ridiculous apology because she serenaded Robert Kennedy Jr. as part of her support for his ideas on health care reform; she does a lot of work for mental health these days. 

One musician who didn't apologize for even the most heinous things he was accused of over the past four years, staying quiet in public but insisting on his innocence in court filings, Marilyn Manson was cleared of any criminal charges by the cops out in LA. Maybe they thought he brought the fires by some kind of hoodoo, but something tells me, if they investigated him for four years and didn't find anything charge-worthy, it was probably about as full of hot air as the whole saga Johnny Depp went through. And I can't remember how long it's been since they both did that thing with Alice Cooper called the Hollywood Vampires, but that was really cool. I think they're all three sober now, know Alice has been for a long time, but I don't keep up with all the celebrity gossip usually. I just like it better when people get off the sauce than when they end up dying from it. 

And I was going to share a tweet here where Damien Echols said he was close to getting the DNA evidence examined to finally clear his name, but it looks like it has been deleted before I got a chance to share it. I have a real bee in my bonnet these days in favor of people who have been falsely accused of anything. Seems like it's one of those paranoid times of history where everybody wants to point the finger and blame other folks. I think that's going to continue to get worse, but where I've got a voice, I've got a right to say, hey, I don't care for it. 

I saw where some people said Neil Gaiman was "going DARVO" in his attempt to defend himself against #metoo allegations. 

For anyone not aware, that's one of those annoying modern acronyms. It stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. 

And I would challenge anyone on the planet to show me where Neil did that in his statement I linked to above. He did deny that he abused anyone, but if he attacked anyone with those words, it was himself, admitting that he had been selfish and regretted it. And when you admit to having made mistakes, that pretty much negates the idea of reversing the victim and offender. He sounded blindsided to me, like he said some of it wasn't even true, and then the things that were true were being portrayed way differently than he remembered them. Even when he went back and read the messages back and forth . . . which was what caused him to reflect that he'd been selfish and too lost in his own head to think about other people's feelings sometimes. No apologies are good enough anymore, the mob keeps crying for blood. The only way I find his statement wrong is if he's lying. I've seen this ridiculous circus play out with several famous people now, and I'm just tired of it. People are cancelling shows based on his work and trying to act all self-righteous, and I hate it. Maybe in four or five years, people will realize rushing to judgement was a mistake here too. Even if it turns out he's guilty of some of the horrid stuff, which he says he didn't do, I still think he deserves a fair trial before being punished like this. And by the way, I only started reading his stuff right before the pandemic hit. He's a good writer. If anything, the way he's being condemned before being tried makes me want to support his writing more. Cancel culture has had its day, and I'm to the point I reject it with a whole heart. 

It hits a personal note with me because there was a suicide in my family a few months ago, last summer, and this guy's parents had a nasty divorce. For years I bought the narrative that the father was just a monster based on one wrong thing he did in a moment of extreme anger. But then I learned from reliable sources in the family that the mother had done things that were just as bad to the man who is now her ex-husband, and done them on more of a regular basis, long before the incident they got divorced because of. And this guy who killed himself before he turned 18 or started his last year of high school was supposed to return to his mother's house from his father's house that weekend. At least that's the best I've been able to piece it together. (I've grown very distant from that part of the family, and they didn't respond when I tried to reconnect after this happened.) So I have no use for this modern trend of pretending that women are saints who always tell the truth, and men are always the villains who just use and misuse women. There is a limit to that where common sense has to come back into play. I wish life was more simple and black-and-white sometimes, but that's not how things really are. And few things are a harsher dose of reality than getting a call that someone you remember as a sweet, bright kid has blown himself to oblivion. I don't know exactly what happened there, but I can imagine. I dealt with enough of that same basic thing when I was his age. For what it's worth, I wrote a poem for him. Which I've only let a couple other people see, besides a publisher . . . who will probably reject it. 

Anyway, as an old schoolteacher I loved would say, on to more pleasant things. 

I started to make this the only featured item I was willing to "chatter" about this time . . . 

Kelly Clarkson did an incredible rendition of Billie Eilish's song "Birds of a Feather". And even if you're not a fan of either singer, trust me, give this one a chance. For that matter, catch "Kellyoke" any time you can. What she can do with her voice amazes me nearly every time I catch one of those videos. I tend to forget she doesn't play an instrument because her voice steals the show from whatever band is backing her. Besides, both of these women seem to practice feminism in its positive sense. Unless I hear of one of them clobbering a boyfriend with a frying pan, I'll keep that opinion. And even then, I'll wonder if he had it coming. Some guys really do. It can go either way . . . 

If anybody was as depressed as I was by Billy Ray Cyrus's ultra-lame version of "Achy Breaky" (wait, that's sort of redundant . . . nah, I do like some of his music . . . but how that song was ever a phenomenon still baffles me), I offer an antidote from his daughter Miley, who did an impeccable version of "Doll Parts" by Courtney Love/Kurt Cobain quite some time back. I need some good music tonight. And curious readers get to share some of it here underneath the weather forecast stuff. 

Today I let the Stormy cat get some sunshine and fresh air for a good two or three hours probably, to sort of make up for the time she had to stay in a lot when it was so cold and I was really sick and stuff. She attracted the attention of the lady who donated her to me last year, who still can't believe she's the same cat. Says she looks happier and fatter, but that she means the fatter part in a good way. She let her former mom pet her and didn't try to bite anymore. 

That drew the attention of a couple kids from the neighborhood who were visiting their dad for the weekend, a friend of mine who soon showed up too with his uncle. And we mainly shot the bull and watched the kids try to do stunts on their bikes. Well, one of them had a scooter. Stormy never did quite warm up to them, kept running back inside or at least hiding behind me. I managed to get Salem to come out, and he even let one girl pet him (he's the black cat I got after a bad storm a couple years ago . . . Stormy is the tabby female) before he got freaked out by the other kids making loud noises and ran back inside. It kind of cracks me up seeing cats that are afraid of kids . . . reminds me of that old cartoon with that Elmyra character who wanted to pick up all the bunnies and hug and squeeze them to little bits. And they would run when they saw her coming. I almost never had control of the TV when I was a kid anyway, and I haven't seen that in forever. Lately I've been watching Twin Peaks again on the one streaming service I'm willing to put down money for at the moment. David Lynch was the man. And that show was unique. I bet it was thrilling to see in real time as the episodes came out. I sort of envy the people who saw it that way, but then . . . I'm not immune to this era of binge-watching. It's one of the few shows that's worth doing that with. 

And I guess that's enough chatter. Except that I do worry about Salem hardly ever wanting to go out anymore. Maybe I've been a bad influence on him that way, staying in when I can and just sort of letting the rest of the world continue to go to hell in its own way. And if I can make one contribution to this era of ever-increasing paranoia, he really might have a deal with HAARP to help them control the weather. But if he does . . . uh . . . that's classified. 

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Some Rain on the Way, Clearing for the Weekend, Warm Next Week

Thursday (High 66, Low 42): Cloudy and windy with widely scattered rain showers possible during the day. Then widespread rain showers are likely at night. 

Friday (High 66, Low 55): Windy with gradually decreasing clouds. Scattered showers are still possible, mainly in the morning. 

Saturday (High 60, Low 41): Mostly sunny. Still breezy.

Sunday (High 67, Low 39): Sunny.

Monday (High 69, Low 42): Mostly sunny.

Tuesday (High 70, Low 46): Mostly sunny. 

Wednesday (High 69, Low 48): Partly to mostly sunny. 

It was a sunny day in Cullman after a brief period of heavy fog this morning, and it got a little breezy at times with variable wind direction. The High was 66, and the Low was 36. Actually those numbers are rounded from precise temperatures measurements to a tenth of a degree. But tonight I'm leavin' the nitpickin' for people with head lice. Oh my God . . . hate speech . . . he took a cheap shot at those unfortunate souls suffering from head lice . . . off with his head!




So the weather feature we are watching is a closed upper-level Low out over the Desert Southwest. The wind flow ahead of it is producing a lower of lower-level and mid-level lift along the jet streak. So we have a good bit of rain and even some thunderstorms moving out of East Texas through the Mid-South. 

Around here, high pressure is keeping the lower levels of the atmosphere drier for now. We have some mid-and-high-level clouds moving in this evening, but it'll probably be at least midnight before we see any rain chances around here. 

And I shamelessly referred to NWS Huntsville's official forecast discussion to decide how to explain these weather maps. In case anybody didn't notice. 




It looks like scattered showers will be possible off and on all throughout tomorrow, including the early morning hours. And it'll be windy. The High will get to about 66 under cloudy skies, the morning Low near 42. Then at night rain showers will become likely. We can just about count on all getting some rain across the area Thursday night. 

Looks like the chances for flooding will stay well into the Northern and Western parts of Tennessee, not the parts that immediately border Alabama. That risk stretches into Arkansas and also up into Kentucky. And then they have a risk of severe thunderstorms down in Louisiana. 

Friday it looks like scattered showers will linger but will be over for most of us by late morning. It'll stay partly to mostly cloudy and windy. High expected to be in the mid-60's, Low in the mid-50's. 

Then after that system clears out of here on Saturday, skies will return to being mostly sunny, it'll still be breezy, especially early in the day, a High near 60 or so, Low of 40 or so. 



Sunday and Monday, we'll have high pressure in control of our weather again. Plenty of sunshine both days but especially Sunday, Highs in the upper 60's, the Low about 40 for Sunday and then lower 40's for Monday. 

So for anybody who didn't get a thrill out of our recent Arctic blast, where we were actually colder one day than Alaska was, maybe more than one day, but I took the trouble to check one day, this will be a lot more comfortable. And all clowning aside, seriously, if you need to get something done outside that the weather has been keeping you from, here comes your opportunity. These are actually more like Spring temperatures. But you know, Spring is only about a month away. Time flies when you're . . . even if you're under the weather like I've been for over a month now. I swear, the crud going around this season is the hanging-on type. Some of the rest of ya' mighta' noticed . . . 



And then we're going to be in an odd pattern that hangs on into mid-week where we're on the warm side of a front that is probably going to stall out and may not bring us any rain (at least through this forecast period). Now the Midwest and Ohio Valley, looks like this system will have some fun with, but around here, expecting mostly sunny skies to stay in place overall, maybe a few more clouds coming back by Wednesday, probably little or no rain, Highs approaching 70 and Lows edging into the upper 40's. 

So again if you've been needing to get out and weather is your excuse for staying in, weather's looking good after we get this rain out of the way. Next week may make you wonder if we skipped a month in the calendar instead of it being the start of February. But that's how it goes sometimes. And I don't know if it's because of global warming, ask Greta Thunberg. She's used to rolling with the punches. Leave the folks at the IPCC alone. If you need to harass somebody, actually, leave Greta alone too . . . bother the folks at HAARP, especially since I think they've shut down now. But the truly enlightened ones know how they are the elite and control the weather along with the reptilian humanoids. So if you can get a message through to them, you know, they love to hear from people in tinfoil hats I'm sure. 


Back in the real world, rainfall totals should average about 0.25-0.5 inch roughly South of the Tennessee River. And then as you get up into far Northern Alabama and into Tennessee, amounts closer to 1 inch will be more common over the next seven days. Probably all of that rain comes tomorrow and Friday. 

And I must have remembered some rogue news story about HAARP shutting down. Turns out they are still operational. (They could have closed down temporarily and then opened back up. I don't always keep up with the latest news. One time I posted online how much I liked a particular host on late-night radio, Ian Punnett, and then went to check up on him, found out he had died a few months before. Guess that's what I get for not listening religiously.) So here's some information on what they're really about. 

Of course, it has been rumored that I have a diabolical black cat named Salem and his evil accomplice, and an even meaner tabby cat named Stormy (women are always more diabolical . . . ask any man who's ever been married even once . . . or dated a lot in high school, let alone college) who have a top-secret contract with HAARP to help control the weather in these parts as needed. Should there be any truth to this, I would not be at liberty to discuss it with anyone, much less the general public. I can only joke about it. If I disappear mysteriously, some may theorize that the folks at HAARP were not amused. The cats will survive though, and they are superior creatures. I wish I was as noble as either one of 'em, or as much fun. 

In all seriousness, hope you all enjoy the warmer days. 


I think I'm going to lay off the Spanish forecasts unless somebody tells me that they are getting any good out of them. That's why the Good Lord made Duolingo, to practice that stuff for fun. Nobody cares about it in the real world these days. And from what I've seen, Hispanics are not as lazy about learning a second language as most of my fellow Caucasians. So the whole thing probably comes off as a virtue-signalling waste of time. I did learn Spanish when I was a kid though because I got frustrated not knowing how to talk to the Mexicans (they were all from Guatemala if you want to get specific) at the church my mother went to at the time. And that was a lot of fun. I sort of hate to see it go to waste, sort of like I hate not being able to use what I understand about the weather in any useful way. That's why I splatter both on a blog sometimes. 

Ay Caramba . . . looks like it's only self-indulgence that makes fried ice cream look like the kind of saintly meals people eat for Lent . . . or whenever it is that some people eat enough to stay alive but more-or-less undergo a fasting ritual. I know almost nothing about Lent except that Megyn Kelly kept saying she would give up swearing for it . . . which of course she never will . . . any more than Sofia Vergara will ever stop strutting around and getting guys to notice her tushie. 

And a certain level of humor is appropriate on a blog like this, but . . . I think it's time to call it a night. 

Sunday, January 26, 2025

Sunshine Returns, Then Unsettled Weather Midweek

FORECAST:

Monday (High 50, Low 37): Gradually decreasing clouds throughout the day. Seasonably cold. 

Tuesday (High 56, Low 27): Sunny. Seasonably cold. 

Wednesday (High 60, Low 36): Partly to mostly sunny. Isolated showers are possible. 

EXTENDED OUTLOOK:

Thursday (High 60, Low 37): Partly cloudy with a 20% chance of showers. 

Friday (High 64, Low 46): Rain likely. 

Saturday (High 65, Low 48): Partly to mostly sunny with a 20% chance of showers. 

Sunday (High 66, Low 42): Sunny. 

PRONÓSTICO:

Lunes (Máxima 50, Mínima 37): Nubes que disminuirán gradualmente durante el día. Frío estacional.

Martes (Máxima 56, Mínima 27): Soleado. Frío estacional.

Miércoles (Máxima 60, Mínima 36): Parcialmente a mayormente soleado. Es posible que haya lluvias aisladas.

PERSPECTIVA EXTENDIDA:

Jueves (Máxima 60, Mínima 37): Parcialmente nublado con un 20 % de probabilidad de lluvias.

Viernes (Máxima 64, Mínima 46): Probabilidad de lluvia.

Sábado (Máxima 65, Mínima 48): Parcialmente a mayormente soleado con un 20 % de probabilidad de lluvias.

Domingo (Maxima 66, Mínima 42): Soleado.

NOTES:

SKYWARN classes are scheduled in-person and online ahead of the Spring severe weather season. These are free, so if you've never taken one and want to learn about severe weather, please, be our guest. I say "our", but I'm just a spotter. It's NWS employees that teach these classes. Although I've taken so many over the years, I'm very confident I could teach one if I was ever asked to. 

And here's a look back at that great snow we had on January 10th. Thanks to NWS Birmingham for taking the time to put that together. Sometimes lately they're the only office who is keeping up their website with really good archives. They used to all do that around here. Maybe it'll come back in fashion, but probably not, because the rocks are getting dumber these days. But we'll see. 

DISCUSSION:

Here at 7:35 PM we have light rain falling in Cullman. The temperature is 43 degrees. The dewpoint temperature is also 43, making the relative humidity 100%. Fun fact: It's usually raining when the humidity is 100%. The air is saturated, which is different than saturated fat, but I don't have time for a detailed meteorology lesson tonight. Plus I always strike out with nutrition, even trying to understand it. They can't make up their minds, you know? Now it's proteins that are going to save you, and breads are the great evil, starches. Before that, they had this food pyramid where the cornerstone was breads and starches, and you were supposed to watch how much meat or peanut butter you ate. And before that it was the four food groups. So that's a little consolation. Even the experts can't make up their minds. So suddenly I feel better about not knowing what to eat to slim myself down. Although I gotta' say, that covid diet of almost nothing but soup was effective. I lost about 13 pounds in a week or two. 

Where were we on the weather? Oh yeah, light rain, 43 degrees, 100% humidity in the great state of Cullman at this hour. Visibility is down to 8 miles in this cool rain tonight. Pressure is 30.26 inches and steady. And the wind is calm. 

We've had some fog with the rain the past few hours, and this visibility of 8 miles is actually an improvement. 

Our High today was 45 with a morning Low of 28. And overall it was a cloudy day off and on with periods of light rain. And we're back to light rain tonight. 





Which is reflected on the radar. Which I guess is why we call it reflectivity. Reflected. Reflectivity. Got a nice ring to it eh? Do I sound like I have tourette's? More than Ben Shapiro? Har har har . . . 

All right, but this is just a nice cold rain tonight. The lightning, as you can see on the satellite imagery, has stayed mainly down in Louisiana and parts of Mississippi. The air is really cool and stable up this way. 



And the weather setup is pretty clear, a cold front moving through the Southeast tonight into tomorrow morning. 



By Noon tomorrow we should be in the clear with high pressure already building back into the region from out West. We'll see clouds gradually decrease during the day. Doubt we even see a lingering shower in the morning. High should get up to about 50 degrees after a Low tonight/in the morning of about 37. Winds will turn back to North/Northwest but should stay light behind this front. It's not a really strong one. 



High pressure moving down around Mobile and in the Gulf of Greenland (hey, if the shrub can rename it, so can I) on Tuesday. And we'll be sunny with a High of about 55-56, Low about 27-28. Winds staying light. 



For Wednesday and Thursday, the deterministic model guidance has become just about worthless, and I don't feel like finding the best link to the ensembles that would give a better look at what's going on than deterministic model runs. As much as I love the National Weather Service, their website is often a shambles now, just a big disorganized mess. And I'm not as good at sorting through it all as I used to be. Everybody else seems to have gone to getting their graphics from WeatherBell and Pivotal Weather. But I love the NWS stuff when I actually have it all organized. It's just that they change things around and then leave broken links and half-functioning sites. And I tried to write somebody on one of those sites asking about stuff, specifically the National Blend of Models data and Model Output Statistics being phased out. And I never heard anything back. So I'm guessing that site had an outdated e-mail address to somebody who wasn't even over that department anymore, something like that. 

That's just life though. I used to think it was just fast food work, back when I worked at a burger palace allegedly known as Mickey D's to its friends. It was such chaos and so unprofessional, like one time a manager actually got on to me for not serving a piece of quarter meat I'd dropped on the floor and using the five-second rule. I threw it away, and she got mad. Joked about taking it out of my paycheck, didn't actually do it. And back then, I thought it was just fast food that was that way. But no, the chaos is everywhere. It's on college campuses, and . . . well . . . I'm not telling anybody anything they don't already know. At least it's usually harmless. The only times I get too bent out of shape about it is like, this woman I worked with at that fine dining establishment said she had a cousin who went to the hospital with a broken leg. (This was not in Cullman County, don't worry. I'm not gonna' say where it was.) They got careless and gave him the wrong kind of medicine, and he died. I think they gave him something that was meant for another patient with stomach problems. And all he needed was like pain medicine for his leg. He just innocently took the medicine without checking, and as poor Jessie put it, she would always laugh and say, "And he DIED . . . !"

Like she just couldn't believe it. This was no minor screw-up. They gave him the wrong medicine, and . . . goodbye Earl, as the Dixie Chicks would say. Out go the lights. 

Despite her trying to laugh it off, that's when it quits being amusing. And the National Weather Service has a mission statement to protect life and property. They take the "life" part very seriously. And for all my clowning and rambling here tonight, I'm being serious about that part. They work as hard as anybody I've ever seen to protect people's lives when the weather gets dangerous, even from something like a snow or ice storm. So I can forgive them for having disorganized web sites. Very easily. I cannot forgive AccuWeather for . . . more mortal sins than I care to enumerate at this time. I just love making new friends that way, like one of their people might read this and hear how often I sing their praises . . . 

Not totally joking. I think AccuWeather totally sucks. And the National Weather Service actually cares about what's important. They don't name winter storms. That's the Weather Channel. I think somebody there was dropping acid when they came up with that idea. As in lysergic acid. The old-fashioned stuff that isn't good enough for Joe Rogan, LSD instead of DMT. Or maybe somebody just got a bad hot dog one night and went nuts. But I've never understood naming winter storms. 

Believe it or not, I'm not on anything but tomato soup and barbecue pizza (the cheap kind, so maybe it had roadkill in it) tonight while I'm doing all this crazy rambling. A strange mood has come over me as I'm listening to Coyote J. Calhoun's Cemetery of Rock on 101.5 FM WJLX out of Jasper. Maybe it's his bad influence. But the music sure is great. 

I've rambled for so long, I better show those weather maps again. So nobody has to scroll back up to see them. 



Yeah, so, given the disorganized nature of model data on NWS websites and my feeling lazy tonight, I'm just using these WPC graphics for when things get unsettled on Wednesday and Thursday. A closed Low will be slowly working its way in our direction from out West. You saw it above in the raw GFS model output, already on its way. Now you don't see the pronounced pressure lines (isobars), but you can see the L for Low pressure system. A frontal boundary will be out in Texas and down into the Gulf of Greenland (yahahahahaha!) with the moisture getting close enough to bring us chances for rain, but staying pretty isolated. 

Both days we'll just have a 20% chance of rain and Highs near 60, Lows in the upper 30's. 

And the truth is, at some point I need to be the one who gets organized. And find one of the bigwigs at the National Weather Service and just ask them, straight out, where they moved a lot of the stuff I used to take for granted, I had neatly organized into a bunch of bookmarks. 



The GFS has a good handle on Friday, so I'm showing it again. I like seeing that closed Low on the 500 millibar map, even though it's a forecast map five days out from now. Rain is likely on Friday with a High in the mid-60's, Low in the mid-40's. 



Overall I think Saturday will be mostly sunny with a High in the mid-60's, Low in the upper 40's. These latest model runs are showing rapid clearing, here on the American model but also on the European model, not shown here. Some previous runs have shown lingering rain Saturday. I'll keep a 20% chance of rain in there in case anything lingers into the morning anyway. 



Then Sunday looks sunny, High in the mid-60's, Low of about 40 or so. 


And it now looks like we may see an average of about two inches of rain in the region over the next seven days. 

CHATTER:

I think I got most of the chatter over with and interrupted the forecast discussion with it. But another great Chuck Doswell memory from the Weatherbrains podcast. Somebody asked him who he was taking with him chasing these days. And I think the show was in 2012 or earlier. But he said, "My chase partner now is my wife." And people seemed surprised. So he said, "Well, she's a lot better to share a motel room with than Al Moller!" And Brian Peters was on there. He laughed and said he hoped Al was listening. So yeah, I guess that had to be way back in the day. That memory just randomly recurred tonight. 

I tried some calculus tonight and actually finished the lesson with only one mistake. First time in a long time trying something that challenging that might veer me back onto the right path with meteorology eventually. I need to review functions from just basic algebra though before I make much progress there. 

It occurs to me that the one thing that never changed about nutrition is that they still say vegetables are good for you. But who likes to eat those things? 

Nah, actually I like squash and turnip greens. And those are technically vegetables. So not all vegetables are bad. I'm learning tolerance. Diversity, equity, and inclusion might not have gone over so well in politics, but in food, it can work pretty good. Some foods are more equal than others though. And an ice cream sundae is better than any vegetable. Don't worry about its nutritional value. It's totally worth dying for. People kill themselves for far less all the time. I say satisfy your taste buds and live and die happy. 

(Goofy weather guy yanked off stage with a cane, by the neck.)

A Couple Sunny, Warm Days/Then Unsettled Pattern Later In Week

FORECAST: Monday (High 71, Low 42): Sunny. Warm. Tuesday (High 73, Low 50): Mostly sunny. Warm. Wednesday (High 75, Low 56): Partly cloudy w...