Winter weather expected

Published 8:35 pm Monday, January 2, 2017

After a rain-filled start to the new year, the wet weather is expected to move out during the middle of the week and return again to end the week with a possibility of frozen precipitation.

Jason Holmes, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Birmingham, said Tuesday through Thursday should be much more calm and dry compared to the first part of the week, which brought nearly two inches of rain.

“There will be another front into the area this weekend, but until then really just partly cloudy skies Tuesday through Thursday, and the next storm system comes in it looks like on Friday and Saturday,” Holmes said.

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The high for Tuesday is 70 degrees, and the low is 51. Wednesday will be a little bit colder with a high of 59 degrees and a low of 34.

Holmes said there shouldn’t be a threat of severe weather, but the NWS will continue to monitor it closely because it is the time of year where severe weather is a possibility.

“It’s only about a 20 percent chance [of rain] right now for Friday, and that lasts into Friday night,” he said.

Holmes said the system should be followed by freezing temperatures at night.

“It will be very cold behind that system. You’ll probably have a freeze,” he said. “It looks like a low of 28 degrees there and highs in the mid-40s over the weekend for Saturday and Sunday under partly cloudy skies.”

Holmes said there is a slight possibility of frozen precipitation.

“We’re going to be watching that real closely before all the rain moves out Friday night. We get cold around 28, so there may be an opportunity for a brief changeover of maybe some wintery mix,” he said.

Holmes said people shouldn’t expect any issues with the roads freezing over though.

“The good news is as warm as the soil temperatures are, we’re not worried about ground problems as far as roads or anything like that. It looks like any type of frozen precipitation will very brief,” he said.

The temperature are expected to be back into the 50s and 60s at the start of next week.