​​Welcome back to the Boomtown podcast. I’m thrilled today; I’ve got my companion here, Todd Baron with the National Weather Service. He is the meteorologist in charge. If you didn’t catch our episode where we talked about severe weather and tornadoes, you definitely want to check it out. But today, we’re going to dive into talking about more of the seasonal weather throughout the year, and dive a little bit more into the summer and the winter. Todd, again, thank you for coming on, man. We appreciate you being here and sharing your knowledge with us. Todd: Yeah, I’ll talk about winter all day with our short-sleeve shirts on and everything like that, so let’s do it. I mean, for all they know, it could be December. Host: Yeah. One of the things a lot of people move here for is they're looking to get away from cold weather elsewhere, right? I can't tell you how many people start off the conversation with, "I'm tired of shoveling snow and I don't want to go to Florida." So, we wind up being a good middle ground for that. And what I have found that really is a big draw to people is our outdoor activities here. We have so much to do in Huntsville and we have so much amazing weather throughout the year to be able to enjoy those. So, I tell people we have long, temperate springs, we have fairly mild winters, and we just don't talk about the summer. Is that about accurate? Todd: Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment. And we talked about this in the episode before—the springs are nice until the weather tries to get a little active and tries to take us out. But no, otherwise, the winters—I usually like going out hiking in the wintertime whenever it's not frigid. But I mean, those days are not going to be every day like you would have up north. And then yeah, like you said, summertime is summertime in the South. You can't escape that; it’s absolutely brutal. Host: During the winter, typically, what I tell people is—because I get a lot of people asking about freezing temperatures because they're trying to get away from those—we still have frost, we can still have snow, or sleet, or ice. But a general, typical winter day for us probably drops down a little below freezing at night, we'll have some frost on the roof and the grass, and daytime temps may get to 45 to 55, something like that. Does that sound about accurate? Todd: Yeah, nothing really too much to write home about on a typical winter day. Like you said, it's fairly mild compared to up north and everything like that. 40s, 50s. You may have to scrape some frost off your windshield in the morning, you may see some frost on the grass, but that's, again, not a huge impact to have out there for sure. Host: Now, we have seen some really kind of crazy cold blasts the last couple of years. I remember, like three or four years ago, it was like once in 40 years, and then it's happened twice since, right? What's going on with those, man? What happens? Todd: Yeah, so it just gets cold in the wintertime; it's nothing new. You know, like we said, it doesn't always stay as temperate here and consistently the same temperature. We're not San Diego, California, or anything like that. So yeah, some of those cold arctic continental air masses do tend to make their way down here further south. Typically, it's not uncommon for us to see this a few times a year in North Alabama. It is uncommon to see it way down in like Southern Alabama; we saw that this year where it actually had 8 inches of snow in Gulf Shores. It was a day where they got a bunch of snow, but we were so far north of where the precipitation was that we got the cold air but none of the precipitation that they got on the coast. So yeah, it can get a little wacky in the wintertime. But yeah, those cold blasts that we've had the last couple of years, we've seen temperatures drop into single digits, wind chills can drop into the negative numbers, and that can start causing some impacts out there. We're talking about pipes and stuff like that. We say the three things to protect are people, pets, and pipes. Those are the things that you want to protect. You don't want to be outside for those frigid cold temperatures, especially once you start mixing in winds. Definitely don't want to leave your pets outside; they get cold too. And then the pipes—once it drops below freezing, especially for a prolonged period of time, especially if we're talking about single-digit temperatures—bite the bullet, run up your water bill a little bit, and just drip the faucets. It doesn't have to be a full blast, but just a slow drip of water to protect the pipes, for sure. Also, covering those outside hose spigots and leaving cabinets open to get warm air in. Host: And I see all this in my job, right? When I go through vacant homes, invariably I get a notification from some listing agent, "Hey, we can't show this, there was a burst pipe." And now, you know, all this. So, vacant homes are probably the number one victim of that, from my standpoint, and what I've seen, particularly when they've been vacant for a while, because nobody is going back to drip that sink or to open those cabinets or turn up the heat. And you mentioned bringing pets in; that's huge for me. My dogs love to play outside in the snow, but they're not going to live out there, right? So they come in, dry off, and warm up too. You mentioned the snowstorm that went through last year that really nailed the beach area. Frequently up here, we're on the fringes of a snowstorm going through. And you know, we can predict, or you guys can predict, severe weather a week in advance, but sometimes we're like in the midst of the snow falling before we have a reasonable idea of what's going to accumulate. Like, what goes on there? Todd: Snowfall forecasting can be difficult at times because, for one thing, we know even just a little bit of ice and snow is going to have a major impact in North Alabama. Let's just say we are forecasting an inch of snow; an inch of snow is basically like us trying to forecast about a tenth of an inch of rain, and a tenth of an inch of rain is not too easy to forecast sometimes. Now, if we're talking about a half an inch or less of snow, which still has a pretty big impact if the roads are cold enough and stuff sticks to it, now we're talking about trying to measure like hundredths of an inch of rain, and this is just kind of noise in the model right now, trying to see what's going to fall and what's not. So, one thing that we're looking at a lot more is trying to get data on road temperatures, because we know that if the roads are below freezing and there's a threat of precipitation, then we know it's going to stick and there's going to be some issues out there. That's what we're trying to really focus in on right now. We don't necessarily forecast road temperatures at the Weather Service, but we do have some sensors that we rely on from some third-party vendors. And so that's a better way for us to communicate, "Hey, it's cold outside, the roads are cold, and on top of that, there is going to be a threat of some precipitation that may fall," whether it's going to be freezing rain or snow. And if that sticks, well, we know what happens whenever that sticks out here. Host: Absolutely armageddon here. I know for a couple of years in a row, we've seen some challenges on Monte Sano and Cecil Ashburn, which, for people who aren't from here, we have some low-rising mountains that have some curvy roads that go over them coming from Owens Cross Roads into Huntsville. It just so happened to be these low temperatures hit right around the holidays, so there was a lot of road travel, and we saw a lot of people get stranded on those, a lot of cars sliding into one another. So, when the forecast comes out for those frozen roads and those travel advisories, people need to do a better job of heeding those. Your F-150 doesn't go up the mountain any better than Balances' car. Todd: You know, for that, there's been some events too. I don't want to give people the benefit of the doubt here, because there's been some events—we call this the "Boxing Day Blizzard," where we had this was in 2023, I think. It was the day after Christmas. This particular Christmas was very cold; temperatures were in the single digits, and then we just so happened to have this very thin, narrow band of precipitation that went right over Metro Huntsville. It didn't really affect anything in North Madison County or even south of the river; it was mainly just Metro Huntsville. It dropped maybe about a quarter-inch or so of snow, but it was enough that once the snow hit the ground, it immediately froze, and it froze right around rush hour time. So, in advance, we did put out a winter weather advisory. We saw it coming; this was more so, like, hours in advance as opposed to days, but by that point, there's not much you can really do to pre-treat the roads. And then, if you're working, you have to make a snap decision: "Okay, do I want to risk going home right now, or see if it's actually going to get this bad?" Well, it got bad because, again, there was a very thin, narrow band of precipitation that caused all that incident. Now, if we can forecast better, like a day or two in advance, then we can work a lot more with DOT. They can pre-treat the roads; they know what roads are more susceptible to icing over. And you saw this last year—DOT was able to go out there and pre-check all the roads ahead of time, preventing incidents like that. In 30-plus years in Alabama, the roads have been treated more the last two years than that entire previous 30 years. Host: Right. And that's something you and I have talked about offline in the past—is that a lot of what your job and responsibility is, is actually coordinating with these other civic organizations for emergency preparedness. So can you kind of go into that? I know like one of the things we talked about is like school buses and why school may close early because of wind advisories, things like that. Todd: Yeah, so the main folks that we interact with, especially for these types of events, are going to be the county emergency managers. County emergency managers then liaison with the schools and then other entities, like hospitals, stuff like that. So, they're kind of our main megaphone for each county because then they have specific partners within that county, so just using a network. So yeah, so the schools are going to be the main driver whenever it comes to winter weather. If winter weather falls on like a Saturday, I feel like typically there's not too much panic, like, "Okay, we can deal with this." If it falls on the weekday, it creates a little bit more of a situation right there. So, the county emergency managers will be coordinating with the schools, and the school superintendent will then kind of decide whether or not they want to keep schools open, just based off the forecast. More often than not, they're going to err on the side of caution because the last thing they want to do is put buses on icy roads, especially on some of these more squirrely roads out here. Host: Sure. I'd far rather have somebody be mad at me because their kid lived than they know where. Todd: Correct, exactly. And sometimes it doesn't pan out, or sometimes it doesn't snow at all at your house, and maybe it did up on the mountain. That's why Huntsville City Schools has had to close. Host: Absolutely. And you bring up a good point. We have elevation changes here; sometimes we see snow on the mountain tops that we don't see anywhere else. A lot of people ask me about lake-effect snow here; I haven't really seen that, but I also don't live in a part of the county where the lakes stick. I live more in like a narrow river band. Do we see lake-effect snow here? Todd: Yes, we do. It's kind of wild, but yeah, we do. It's not going to be lake-effect snow like you see in Buffalo or Syracuse, but Lake Wheeler, for instance—once the wind hits the lake just right, this good, like, northwesterly wind—if it hits that lake just right, we have a little bit of moisture to play with. It can dump a little, you know, heavier snowfall amounts downstream in Morgan County, like parts of Decatur. It can get hit with a little bit more snow. Like I said, it's not going to be buckets of snow like they see up north, but it does tend to have a little bit of a stronger snow band with the right conditions. Host: Yeah. We talked a little bit about people, pets, and pipes. I think that was a great way of putting it. What are some things people, in addition to the pipes, should be doing to prep for winter weather? We talked about what to do on our last podcast if we have severe weather coming in the form of tornadoes or damaging straight-line winds, but what about in the wintertime? What should people be doing? Todd: Yeah, so we talked about the pipe management and everything, making sure that you're covering the faucets outside. One thing that we saw this last year, or at least I saw that personally, was that there's a threat of some ice and snow—we had some cold conditions again—and all the local hardware stores (Home Depot, Lowe's, stuff like that) were running out of salt and stone shovels. So, again, I don't know if they're carrying salt now at Lowe's, but whenever it's not snowing or the threat of snow isn't in the forecast, it's a good time to maybe grab a bag just to put on your stairs. You don't need to buy like 10 bags or anything like that, but that'll help with slips and falls. Snow shovels are good to have too, in case no one wants to shovel snow, but you might have to just get everything out. And then you mentioned about travel and four-wheel drives and big trucks and stuff like that. Big trucks and four-wheel drives can handle the snow, but they can't handle the ice. No car can. It's just going to be four wheels that are going to be spinning instead of two if you have four-wheel drive. So, for those snowy events, if you don't have to be on the road, don't venture out. It's Alabama, it's not going to stick around too long; it'll be gone in a matter of a day or a couple. I always tell people it might snow this evening and you'll see all your grass by 5:00 tomorrow. There's exceptions where it lasts for a couple of days, but by and large, we get an inch or two inches of snow when we get it, and it's gone the next day. Host: Well man, I really appreciate you sitting down and talking with us. It's really important for people to know and understand what they're getting into when they move here. Todd: Yeah, thank you, absolutely. Host: Thanks for having me. Absolutely, thanks for watching or listening. You can always catch us on audio wherever you get your podcasts, be it Spotify or Apple, or you can watch our video on YouTube. Really appreciate you guys being here. Ask that you subscribe so we can keep you informed of everything going on here in Huntsville.