THANKFULLY… we are in a pattern of wet weather, where the showers are falling under continued cloudy skies which is the PERFECT scenario for us in the midst of trying to climb out of a three year drought. Now, please remember, that while we can put a 3 year drought behind us with just a few months of steady rain, we are STILL in an severe to extreme drought category, so we are not out of the woods yet. The good news is that we can actually see where the woods end, though there are lots of forest creatures between us the the light, if you will forgive my Grimm fairy tale analogies.

Speaking of the ORIGINAL Brothers Grimm fairy tales, have you actually READ them and seen the ORIGINAL German versions that they taught the children? Most of these couldhave been scripts for modern day U.S. horror movies! Not ALL of them, but god grief. No wonder why my ancestors in Der Vaterland seemed to be so troubled. (Surprised that a last name of Huffines <original was Hoffeinz> is German?)

Enjoy the rain. Plus you get extra bonus points if I catch you humming a certain Eddie Rabbit song in the midst of these blessed rains!

Brad Huffines, Chief Meteorologist / Storm Force 31

 With rains and thundershowers moving in on Friday as a cool front slips through the Tennessee Valley, when you head out the door Friday morning, pack your rain gear in case you happen to be outside when the showers come to visit your neighborhood or areas of work and business.  Keep the umbrella handy for Saturday with another chance for some scattered showers as the front will hang up just south of us and keep our atmosphere unsettled.

Sunday, the cooler air that crosses the Appalachians will whip back around the mountains in North Georgia and return to parts of the Tennessee Valley as a backdoor front, one that comes in from the opposite direction from where cooler air normally arrives.

As for next week, warm air surges back in on Monday, taking us back into the 70s, reloading the skies wtih humidity to set the stage for more rains and thunderstorms Monday afternoon through the passage of the next cool front Tuesday morning.

Check the 7-Day Forecast for Details

Brad Huffines, Chief Meteorologist / Storm Force 31

How the Chinese plan to modify the weather in Beijing during the Olympics, using supercomputers and artillery…

I saw this in an article from which I will include an excerpt, with the link to the entire article included below.  It will be interesting to see how or if this works.  Of course if it does not, it will probably be hard to find out since it is… well, China.

To prevent rain over the roofless 91,000-seat Olympic stadium that Beijing natives have nicknamed the Bird’s Nest, the city’s branch of the national Weather Modification Office–itself a department of the larger China Meteorological Administration–has prepared a three-stage program for the 2008 Olympics this August.

First, Beijing’s Weather Modification Office will track the region’s weather via satellites, planes, radar, and an IBM p575 supercomputer, purchased from Big Blue last year, that executes 9.8 trillion floating point operations per second. It models an area of 44,000 square kilometers (17,000 square miles) accurately enough to generate hourly forecasts for each kilometer.

Then, using their two aircraft and an array of twenty artillery and rocket-launch sites around Beijing, the city’s weather engineers will shoot and spray silver iodide and dry ice into incoming clouds that are still far enough away that their rain can be flushed out before they reach the stadium.

Finally, any rain-heavy clouds that near the Bird’s Nest will be seeded with chemicals to shrink droplets so that rain won’t fall until those clouds have passed over. Zhang Qian, head of Beijing’s Weather Modification Office, explains, “We use a coolant made from liquid nitrogen to increase the number of droplets while decreasing their average size. As a result, the smaller droplets are less likely to fall, and precipitation can be reduced.” August is part of Northeast Asia’s rainy season; chances of precipitation over Beijing on any day that month will approach 50 percent. Still, while tests with clouds bearing heavy rain loads haven’t always been successful, Qian claims that “the results with light rain have been satisfactory.”

The original article is here.

Brad Huffines, Chief Meteorologist / Storm Force 31

Last growing season, we had a late freeze that wiped out many of the spring and summer crops in Alabama.  The bad news first… a freeze tonight might nip a few buds for plants starting to show their trust for Mother Nature’s goodness.

The good news is that at this point, the plants are less sensitive to a hard freeze than later in the growing season.  I hope for the sake of local agriculture interests, this is the last freeze of the season, but of course, there is no way to promise that.

With the Jet Stream becoming a virtually West-to-East wind flow, the chance for a strong cold front to drop into the Tennessee Valley with a big temperatures change and damaging thunderstorms is minimal, showing that March should go out like a lamb, much like how it came in.

Check the 7-Day Forecast for Details

Brad Huffines, Chief Meteorologist / Storm Force 31

What you see on camera is not the only thing that goes on in a TV Station’s Studio.  Here at Channel 31, the weather center is located behind the news set, where Brad, Keller and Gary make their forecasts.  Several computers and three smart brains bring you the daily accurate forecast.

My name is Brian Huffines, son of Brad Huffines.  I’m 16 years old and a Sophomore at Cypress Creek High School in Houston, TX.  I’ve been around news basically my whole life.  I often forget that many of you have never seen what truly goes on behind the scenes in a TV Station.  However, there are many things I’ve seen and heard that I won’t share!

As Dad forecasts, he fills out a specially made Excel spreadsheet he designed to add detail to his local forecast for the Tennessee Valley.  On this spreadsheet, Dad lists high and low temperatures, precipitation chances, and wind forecasts he later reproduces on his weather graphics.  This he says helps him to keep organized, and if you know my dad, he needs all the help he can get!

Once on camera, Dad stands in front of a big green wall called a Chromakey Wall.  The camera is hooked to a computer that is sensitive to this color green.  Anything the camera sees is green, a computer superimposes his weather graphics over the green.  So if you ever see him wearing this color green, he will turn into a weather map, so please point and laugh all you want!  He tells where he’s pointing by looking at television mounted on either side of the wall where he sees just what you see at home.  Now you just thought that was one big TV screen, but nope now you know that secret!

This is just the very basics of everything that goes on in a Television Weather Studio.  I must say, you are pretty lucky that you have my dad giving you the best forecast around.  Yeah, okay, I might be a little biased, but you have to admit, he is pretty darn good!  I’ll post every so often, but until then take care. 

C/SrAmn Brian Huffines, Civil Air Patrol, Son of Chief Meteorologist Brad Huffines / Storm Force 31

The Easter weekend of 2008 will be remembered weather wise for how the early Spring weather was warm for a few days before, even warmer the days following, and for its coolness on Easter Sunday itself.  The temperature changes will be fairly dynamic, after highs in the low 70s on Friday, by Easter, the temperatures will be 20 degrees cooler.  In fact the coolest day of the cool down coming will be Easter Sunday itself.  So dress the young’uns in a jacket if you are taking them outside to hunt Easter eggs.  

And remember you might not find all the plastic eggs, but if you use real eggs to hide, eventually your nose WILL find them all.

The first full work week of Spring might start off with a few areas of light rain and sprinkles, but with the rapidly warming temperatures next week, by Friday, some of the Tennessee Valley might actually see a few thermometers reach 80.  Yes, that’s what I said.  The week might also bring a couple instances of showers or thundershowers as well.

Check out the 7-Day forecast for details.

Brad Huffines, Chief Meteorologist / Storm Force 31

As of yesterday there was a threat for early morning snow in the Tennessee Valley on Monday morning.  But as each successive computer model run shows is a slightly warmer weather pattern than suggested yesterday, lessening the chance for any snow flurries, and increasing the chance for a little drizzle late Sunday night and early Monday morning.

Overall the weather for the Easter weekend of 2008 shows comfortably cool weather on Saturday, a little cooler on Easter itself, and a chilly Monday following the weekend.  The chances for any measurable precipitation is not in the 7-Day forecast.

Check out the 7-Day forecast for details.

On a brighter note, the US Drought Monitor shows that the Exceptional Drought that has controlled the Tennessee Valley for over a year is lessning dramatically.  3 months ago, nearly 50% of the state was considered in an exceptional drought category, and now that has dropped to 1.5%.  So there have been improvements with the recent rains.

Brad Huffines, Chief Meteorologist / Storm Force 31

After high temperatures climbed into the lower 70s (again), we are reminded that Spring is just days and hours away, starting on Thursday, March 20th at 12:48am, Central Daylight Time.  With spring-like weather, both in the form of heavy to severe t-storms, as well as more warm temperatures, will usher out Winter and in Spring, while the weekend weather pattern will show for some cooler temeratures.

With overnight and early morning storms possible in the Tennessee Valley Wednesday morning, the main threat is for gusty or damaging winds as well as areas of pea to marble-sized hail.  The threat for tornadoes is very little, but not entirely out of the question.  Behind that, two very nice days followed by a cooling weather pattern for the weekend.

Check out the 7-Day forecast for details.

Brad Huffines, Chief Meteorologist / Storm Force 31

If you were watching the Alabama – Mississippi State basketball game, you were able to see a very rare event.  Thunderstorm damage occurring right in front of your eyes.  And as of 9:21am, the Georgia Dome had been damaged, as had the CNN Center, the Omni, with windows blown out, with WAGA in Atlanta reporting injuries on the ground.  At the time of the possible tornado, as was reported by the Fulton County Emergengy Management, a Tornado Warning was in effect, but not a confirmed tornado.  However, as the storm damage is surveyed in the daylight, it would not surprise me to see the National Weather Service, Atlanta, to report an EF1 tornado.

The storm system that caused this damage was the same storm system that caused nickel sized hail in Northeast Alabama, and the morning rains and storms in the rest of North Alabama.

Be prepared for overnight strong to severe t-storms in North Alabama as well as the potential for severe weather during the morning and afternoon hours as well.  Please read the blog below for information on that storm potential.

 Brad Huffines, Chief Meteorologist / Storm Force 31

A stormy start to Saturday is entirely possible, if not likely in much of the Tenessee Valley.  While computer model forecasting is the basis for most of modern weather forecasts, this is one case where the computer models don’t necessarily agree on either the timing or even likelihood of overnight and Saturday severe weather.  Below is the threat for Severe T-storms until 7am on Saturday morning.

It is definitely a time to remain weather aware from the time you read this until the cold front passes on Saturday early evening.  Below is the Severe Weather Threat until 7pm on Saturday.  Notice how the most dangerous weather is expected in Georgia and the Carolinas.

The greatest threat for severe weather is damaging winds and large hail, but isolated tornadoes are also possible as well until this weather pattern changes dramatically by Sunday.

Following clearing skies on Sunday, nice weather will remain through Monday, before another threat for showers and t-storms forms on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning.  With a sharp weather pattern heading our way, there is also another threat for severe t-storms, but again, not a surity at this time.

Check out the 7-Day forecast for details.

Brad Huffines, Chief Meteorologist / Storm Force 31