New weather blog

We are happy to announce the launch of a new, improved weather blog.

www.MyFoxTracker.com will now take you to http://alabama.raycomweather.com/, the home of a combined weather blog featuring meteorologists from Birmingham, Huntsville, Montgomery and Columbus, Ga.

We will now post our weather blogs there, and you can get more perspective from our colleagues in other cities across the state.

Enjoy!

Dennis Washington

Ida's Track

Ida is expected to make landfall by Tuesday along the Gulf Coast. As always, we need to pay attention to the cone and not the line when looking at the National Hurricane Center's track. Most of the forecast models are predicting a rapid weakening and a sharp easterly turn Tuesday. Ida is still going to produce significant wind and rain from Mississippi to Jacksonville through the middle of the week. The worst of the weather will most likely be in Florida instead of the Alabama and Mississippi due to the right turn and also the right front quadrant of the storm being the worst for high winds. Fox 6 has crews in route to the Gulf of Mexico and will provide updates beginning Monday on Good Day Alabama.

James-Paul Dice
Fox 6 Chief Meteorologist
james.dice@wbrc.com

Hurricane Watch extended further east...

As mentioned in my eariler blog post, the Hurricane Watch has been extended further east, from the MS/AL border to Mexico Beach, FL, just east of Panama City.

AT 1200 PM CST...1800 UTC...A HURRICANE WATCH HAS BEEN ISSUED EAST
OF THE MISSISSIPPI/ALABAMA BORDER TO MEXICO BEACH FLORIDA.  A
HURRICANE WATCH IS NOW IN EFFECT FROM GRAND ISLE LOUISIANA TO
MEXICO BEACH FLORIDA.  THIS WATCH DOES NOT INCLUDE THE CITY OF NEW
ORLEANS.  A HURRICANE WATCH MEANS THAT HURRICANE CONDITIONS ARE
POSSIBLE WITHIN THE WATCH AREA...GENERALLY WITHIN 36 HOURS.

Jason Kelley
Fox 6 Meteorologist
jkelley@wbrc.com

Hurricane Watches For the Gulf Coast

Hurricane Watches have just been posted for the northern Gulf Coast.

AT 900 AM CST...1500 UTC...A HURRICANE WATCH IS IN EFFECT FROM GRAND
ISLE LOUISIANA TO THE MISSISSIPPI/ALABAMA BORDER.  THIS WATCH DOES
NOT INCLUDE THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS.  A HURRICANE WATCH MEANS THAT
HURRICANE CONDITIONS ARE POSSIBLE WITHIN THE WATCH AREA...GENERALLY
WITHIN 36 HOURS.

These will likely be expanded to the east later today.

Jason Kelley
Fox 6 Meteorologist
jkelley@wbrc.com

What's the weather gonna do? "Ida" know!

OK, first things first. For today another pleasant day across central Alabama, with just a few more clouds than what we saw Saturday, but still plenty of Sun and warm temperatures. Changes begin Monday as tropical moisture streams in in association with Hurricane Ida, as it moves north into the Gulf.

Tuesday looks to be a wet day. Ida's current forecast is for it to move northward through the Gulf, moving towards Mobile, then turning and parallelling the coast, moving near Panama City and weakening into an extratropical system as it gets incorporated into a cold front moving through the southeast. The moisture from Ida is handled differently depending on which computer model you are looking at, but the majority bring copious moisture across central Alabama, with heavy rain a possibility. I do believe that some sections of area will see heavy rain, but pinpointing those areas this morning is not quite possible yet...we should have a better handle on that as we go through the day tomorrow. A few places could see rainfall totals up to 4 inches, with the majority of the area seeing totals around an inch to 2 inches by the time the rainfall ends on Tuesday afternoon and evening.

Be sure to join us tomorrow night at 6:30pm for our fall severe weather special, Surviving The Storm. You might be surprised at some of the severe weather facts we will share with you, and we'll give you good information to get ready for this fall.

Jason Kelley
jkelley@wbrc.com
Twitter: fox6wxjason

Rain returns after a sunny weekend...

Lots of sun today and tomorrow across central Alabama, but clouds will increase as we go throughout the day on Monday, with rain chances increasing Monday night and Tuesday. Rain should taper off early Wednesday morning, with a return to sunshine during the day. More sun for the remainder of the workweek, with a slight chance of rain returning to the forecast next weekend.

Tropical Storm Ida is moving north at 7 towards the Yucatan Channel...it should move into the Gulf and transition to an extra-tropical system as it gets tangled up with the cold front that will bring our rain chances on Monday and Tuesday.

Jason Kelley
Fox 6 Meteorologist
jkelley@wbrc.com
Twitter: Fox6WxJason

Cold Morning and Warm Afternoons

I was walking through the newsroom today and Melody, our newsroom assistant, asked a very good question. Why is it so cold in the morning yet so warm in the afternoon? She said it's difficult to know what to wear with such extremes. For example, it was 37 degrees F this morning at the Birmingham airport...this afternoon we had 73 degrees F at the airport. That's a 30 degree temperature spread...pretty extreme especially in these parts.

However, it's not too extreme if you live in the Desert Southwest where it's routinely in the 40s at night with highs in the triple digits. So, what gives? What does the weather pattern right now have in common with places like Arizona and New Mexico? The air is dry!

Dry air because it contains less water vapor has a low specific heat. That means is takes much less energy to change its temperature. Water has a high specific heat. We know this because it takes a lot of solar radiation to increase the temperature of a swimming pool. At night, with the absence of solar radiation the temperature of the dry air will drop rapidly. However, when the sunrises - radiation from the sun heats the air up quickly.

Here's an easy forecast tool is to predict the overnight low. Take a look at the afternoon dewpoint temperature. It likely your overnight low will be within two degrees of that temperature.

Have a great weekend!

James-Paul Dice
Fox 6 Chief Meteorologist
james.dice@wbrc.com