Tuesday Morning, March 11, 2014 Warm Afternoon; Rain, Cold Weather Return Soon Daytime high temperatures warmed into the lower 70s on Tuesday, and it will get even warmer this afternoon! Expect highs in the mid-70s with a southwest breeze at 10 to 20 miles per hour. Clouds steadily increase throughout the day, but rain is not going to be a widespread issue during the daylight hours. A few isolated showers could creep as far north as Morgan, Marshall, Cullman, Blount, Etowah, DeKalb and Cherokee Counties by 4 PM, but the best chance of rain comes in with a cold front early Wednesday morning. Rain with the Change: A dramatic shift from warm to cold usually brings some rain and thunderstorms; we do not foresee any severe weather threat with this front, but there will be some scattered showers. Rainfall will be relatively light: around 0.10” to 0.25” between Tuesday night and Wednesday afternoon. Cold Again: Wednesday’s official high for the day will be around 60 degrees and occur before 10 AM. The front passes, and temperatures plunge! We should be around 50 degrees by 3 PM with a gusty northwest wind and a cloudy sky. Expect winds on the order of 15 to 25 miles per hour with gusts to around 35 between noon and 6 PM. A freeze is likely on Thursday morning; temperatures will bottom out close to 20 degrees in the cold valleys; Huntsville, Decatur and The Shoals will see lows closer to the 24-27 range by sunrise. The sun shines brightly in the afternoon, but it’s going to stay chilly! Expect a high in the middle/upper 40s with a light northeast wind. Another freeze is possible on Friday morning as lows range from the upper 20s to the lower 30s. Milder, Wetter Weekend Weather: Friday’s forecast is dry and cool, but things start getting a little unsettled this weekend. Unsettled is not necessarily a term you should fear; it gets thrown around with regard to severe weather now and then, but this time it just refers to an extended period with a chance of rain. It’s a “good news, bad news” forecast. The good news is we do not expect it to rain all day on either Saturday or Sunday. The bad news is that it could rain at almost anytime on either day. That’s very vague, but our guidance is all over the place for rain chances on Saturday and Sunday. In weeding through all of the different solutions, it seems the best chance of rain will come from Saturday night through Sunday. Temperatures will be mild; expect highs in the 60s and lows in the 40s and 50s with limited sun and some occasional rain. Rainfall potential this weekend is around 0.25” to 0.75” through Sunday night.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 15:56:02 +0000