BEWARE OF CLICKBAIT “WEATHER PAGES”… If I could give one piece of advice to high school students aiming to one day be a professional meteorologist, I would say: Don’t post fake weather forecasts in order to get attention and a rush from getting a bunch of clicks and likes. There is a page on Facebook called “Mobile Weather Center.” This page is run by a high school student with no formal training in broadcast communication or meteorology. Unfortunately, any high school student who posts clickbait content does not realize the negative ramifications he or she creates for the weather enterprise as a whole, but more importantly perhaps, for his or her future career. If you’ve seen this image floating around social media, please be aware it was created by a high school student with no formal training in meteorology. It simply is fake and a total crapshoot of a forecast 7-8 days from now.
WHITE CHRISTMAS? PROBABLY NOT, BUT TOO EARLY TO KNOW… Let’s be clear in stating that there are some model scenarios that point to the potential for rain and MAYBE some snow or mixed precipitation across parts of the Deep South around Christmas Eve, however, to disseminate ANY type of “forecast” in terms of where snow or mixed precipitation will happen this far out (7-8 days out!) is nothing more than a crapshoot (to be frank). No one, and I mean NO ONE, can tell you when or where snow will happen beyond 7 days out. Posting an image like this is a total shot in the dark. Could it verify? Yes, it could. But this image is not rooted in any reliable data.
FORECAST FOR CHRISTMAS EVE AS OF NOW… Keep in mind that forecast confidence for Christmas Eve on Thursday and Christmas Day on Friday remains quite low. We are calling for a 40% chance of rain (not snow/mix as of Friday, December 18) on Christmas Eve with high temperatures in the upper-50s or near 60. Cold air is expected to rush in Christmas Eve as a potent cold front crosses our region from northwest to southeast. The question is: Can rain linger around long enough to change over briefly to mix or snow on Christmas Day before moving out in the morning hours? Probably not, although we will continue to monitor trends and bring you the latest over the next few days. No doubt Christmas Day looks COLD with highs in the 40s across south Alabama and northwest Florida, but snow/mix continues to seem rather unlikely as of now. I know we have a lot of folks who want a white Christmas, but the odds of that happening in any given year are extraordinarily low. If you want better odds for a white Christmas, you’ll need to go several hundred miles to our north across parts of the midwestern U.S.
Have a nice Friday afternoon!