SNOW FOR OUR NORTHERN COUNTIES ON TUESDAY; RAIN FOR MOST… Confidence continues to grow in our forecast in that our northern counties will likely have low amounts of accumulating snow on Tuesday while areas to the south will just have a cold rain with no major snow impacts. For south Alabama and northwest Florida, the greatest chance of accumulating snow will happen across the northern parts of Clarke, Washington, Butler, Monroe, and Conecuh counties. Snow amounts in the northern parts of these counties will likely be in the 0.25” to 1” range. South of these northern zones, accumulation will probably be near zero. Unfortunately for folks in coastal counties of Alabama and northwest Florida, the snow chance is near zero other than a few flurries being possible as rain exits our area on Tuesday morning. That is the summary. Here are more forecast details…
MOSTLY CLOUDY, COOL SUNDAY… Clouds continue to stream in from the southwest off the Gulf of Mexico on this Sunday afternoon. Temperatures remain in the 50s across the area. Afternoon highs will likely be in the mid- to upper-50s for nearly all locales across our region. Another cold night is ahead with overnight lows near 35° in most spots.
MAINLY DRY MONDAY… Partly cloudy skies are expected on Monday with high temperatures in the mid-60s. No significant weather issues are expected on Monday.
RAIN CHANCES RISE EARLY TUESDAY MORNING… The chance of rain across south Alabama and northwest Florida will increase significantly during the early morning hours of Tuesday as a powerful cold front approaches from the northwest. Snow will likely be falling across north and central Alabama along the back edge of the precipitation mass. For our area until 7AM, we likely will just have rain. After 7AM is when things get more interesting…
SNOW POSSIBLE ALONG BACK EDGE OF RAIN SHIELD… The chance of rain changing over to snow will be greatest across the northern fringes of our interior counties of south Alabama: Washington, Clarke, Monroe, Conecuh, and Butler. Places like Beatrice, Vredenburgh, Thomasville, Fulton, Coffeeville, Silas, Toxey, Millry, Camden, and Greenville could pick up upwards of 0.25” to 1” of accumulating snow during the morning hours (7AM to 11AM) on Tuesday. There could be road/travel impacts in these areas. Please plan accordingly and plan to be off the road Tuesday morning, if at all possible. A bit of good news is rain/snow should clear out of entire area by 1PM on Tuesday, allowing temperatures to rise somewhat in the middle of the day and allow drying on area roadways to happen. This could potentially help limit the black ice potential Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.
LESSER SNOW AMOUNTS (DUSTING) TO THE SOUTH… We’ll call it a minor dusting of snow for the official forecast for places like Monroeville, Georgiana, McKenzie, Evergreen, Luverne, Repton, Lyeffion, Burnt Corn, Jackson, Grove Hill, Chatom, Wagerville, and Leroy. Snow accumulation amounts will likely be in the 0.1” to 0.5” range in these areas.
FLURRIES ONLY FOR MOST… Any snow that happens to the south of the above-mentioned zones will likely be more of a curiosity than anything else, if current trends hold. We’ll probably just have an abundance of rain with a few flurries in places like Brewton, Atmore, Poarch, Flomaton, Castleberry, Andalusia, Opp, Florala, Bay Minette, and Citronelle. A few flurries are possible in Mobile, Loxley, Walnut Hill, Jay, over to Laurel Hill. No real impacts are expected.
VERY COLD AIR MOVES IN TUESDAY AFTERNOON… Temperatures will be QUITE cold Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning. We could be in hard freeze territory by Wednesday morning with upper-10s becoming possible on the thermometer by 6AM Wednesday across our northern counties. Wednesday will be a very cold day with highs only in the 40s under mostly cloudy skies.
LOOKING AHEAD TO THE END OF THE WEEK… Showers and thunderstorms will become possible toward the end of the week as temperatures moderate back into the 60s. Early model indications point to an unsettled, wet, mild pattern as we go into the upcoming weekend.
UNCERTAINTY CONTINUES… Winter storms and snow are two of the most difficult things we deal with in the weather forecast world for the Deep South. This is due, in part, to the relative infrequent nature of these systems. We don’t have a lot of good analogs to compare the atmosphere to in these situations. I say that very directly to say that this remains a LOW CONFIDENCE forecast. There can and will be changes that we need to make over the next few days. Please continue to check with me as we update the latest information. You can always get the latest info I post across social media and on our website in the RedZone Weather app.
APP ALERTS… We will continue to monitor the snow potential setting up for Tuesday over the next few days and bring you the latest via the RedZone Weather app. Be sure to visit the Alerts tab (bottom right corner) and tap the large, yellow “Alert Settings” button to customize the alerts you would like to receive straight from me.
Have a great Sunday evening!