Rain is Legit. Storms Kinda Meh. Snow? Whatevs.

Current Radar 

Rain Coming

A pretty good thunderstorm complex is brewing near the Ark-La-Tex. HRRR congeals it and shoves it up I-40 in the morning:

At times, rain Saturday will be moderate/heavy. Otherwise, it’ll be light, and occasionally switched off. Rain is more likely around noon and into the early afternoon hours than at any other time. About 0.35″ is forecast, enough to rain out any outdoor plans.

Thunderstorms are also possible. Instability is expected to be pretty low along I-65, which will diminish our storm potential. Stronger storms are possible to our SW, so the Storm Prediction Center has outlooked that area.

Storm Prediction Center Jan 8, 2016 0700 UTC Day 2 Convective Outlook 2016-01-08 07-58-36

Those storms (assuming there are some) will be coming our way, but probably weakening. We’ll certainly be watching it. Alarm level: ALARM SWITCHED OFF.

Temps Saturday will be much like today, mostly in the 50°s.

Overnight Saturday – Sunday Snow Chances

The precip which may switch to snow will be coming from the back end of Saturday’s rain system.

The back end of that system will have (1) very cold north winds and (2) light precip wrapping around the back.

An illustration from the GFS model for Sunday morning:

Reasons we’re not impressed.

(1)  It will be close to 60° a mere 12 hours before all this goes down. The air will get supercold very quickly. Takes the ground a lot longer to get cold enough to do anything snow-fun.

(2)  The “wrap around” precip will be very light, and in the process of leaving us.

(3)  With the current forecast spread between temps and dewpoints, there’s reason to think the Dry Air Monster will evaporate some of that falling precip before we even see it.

WPC’s probability of 1″ snow for most of us is between 1% and 5%, slightly higher to our north:

So, maybe/probably snowflakes will appear Sunday morning, but no accumulation.  Mailboxes, decks should be on medium alert, everyone else, meh.

The Cold, Y’all!

After near-60° Saturday, temps are going to crash Sunday.  Let’s follow the progression:

Saturday

3PM:  56°

9PM:  41°

Sunday

3 AM:  34°

9 AM:  30°

It’ll warm up during the day, right?

Yes, it will! By one degree.

High 31°! That’s only half the story, though. The wind will be coming out the north at 12 MPH, tossing wind chills into the low 20°s. 

By 6 PM, 26°, bottoming out at 20° 3 AM Monday. Maybe even the teens.

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