Or “Dewey Defeats Truman”, if the usual Birmingham snowfall bait-n-switch takes its familiar toll on all of the north-central Alabama snow fans this weekend.

A winter storm is bearing down on Alabama over the next 36 hours, as you’ll soon realize the moment you run out to the store to pick up a few items, only to find yourself trapped for hours amongst a storm-addled crowd clamoring for milk, bread, pop tarts and toilet paper.

ABC 33/40’s James Spann, our local weather hero, is leading the forecast charge on this developing weather system and is only now receiving complementary backup from the National Weather Service and other local forecasts on exactly how much of the white stuff is expected to fall across the metro area Saturday morning and afternoon.

The forecast calls for one of four possible scenarios:

First, if the system arrives as forecast, snow will begin to fall in west Alabama after midnight and spread to the east before dawn, continuing into the early evening on Saturday. One to two inches of snow is expected to accumulate in the area between northern Cullman county and southern Jefferson County, with higher amounts (2-4 inches) in Shelby County and south toward Montgomery. This scenario is generally agreed upon by the National Weather Service and the local mets, including Spann and his 33/40 crew.

Second, if the weather system arrives early, the precipitation will begin as rain late Friday night and Saturday morning, followed by a change over to snow by dawn and lasting into the early afternoon. This idea seems a little more plausable now since the moisture from the developing weather system appears to be spreading into the Deep South a little ahead of schedule. Should this be the case, accumulation probabilities would likely be tamped down slightly, depending on how much moisture is generated by the developing system.

Third, the system itself could trend wetter or dryer than the forecast calls for, which would call into question the accumulation predictions. Recent weather models have hinted that the storm could pump more moisture than the National Weather Service anticipated this morning, which could set the stage for more accumulating snow than is currently forecasted. Of course, the reverse would be true if the low pressure system, currently tracking south of New Orleans in the Gulf of Mexico, drifts southward through the night and shunts the moisture well south of the Birmingham area. That leads us to scenario number four…

…Nothing happens. The low could track too far south, preventing the moisture from spilling into the Birmingham metro area to meet up with the polar air diving in from the Great White North. Or the moisture might arrive before the cold air, allowing for warmer temperatures to become trapped under the cloud base and ensuring a miserable, cold rain event for Saturday.

So, to sum up, no one knows definitively what’s going to happen over the next 36 hours or so. We might have a dusting of snow, a half-foot of snow or a disappointing rainy day. The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Watch, with the option to upgrade to a warning later tonight. So bundle up, put on a pot of coffee, and wait it out with the rest of us. If you really want to keep tabs on what’s going on, check out Spann’s weather blog at www.alabamawx.com.

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