Alabama is preparing for the coldest air of the season.The National Weather Service has issued an Extreme Cold Warning for the Tuscaloosa Area as well as the Gulf coast from midnight to until noon on Sunday. The agency says Huntsville and all of north Alabama will be under a Cold Weather Advisory during that same time frame. The forecast, in general, is for bitter temperatures and gusty winds, which could make it feel as cold as four degrees below zero.
Forecasters say the wind chill means there's a high risk for frostbite and hypothermia. Pets should be brought inside, and plants and pipes should be protected. The warning includes Autauga, Bibb, Blount, Chilton, Dallas, Etowah, Fayette, Greene, Hale, Jefferson, Lamar, Lowndes, Marengo, Marion, Perry, Pickens, Shelby, St. Clair, Sumter, Tuscaloosa, Walker, and Winston Counties
The National Weather Service says gusty winds will also blow around unsecured objects. Trees could be blown down and a few power outages may result. Frostbite and hypothermia will occur if unprotected skin is exposed to these temperatures. Residents are urged to secure outdoor objects. Residents are recommended to dress in layers including a hat, face mask, and gloves if you must go outside. Keep pets indoors as much as possible. Make frequent checks on older family, friends, and neighbors. Ensure portable heaters are used correctly. Do not use generators or grills inside. To prevent freezing and possible bursting of pipes they should be wrapped, drained, or allowed to drip slowly.
As tens of thousands of people in partsof Mississippi and Tennessee endured nearly a week with no electricity, another storm loomed on the East Coast where residents braced for near-hurricane force winds, heavy snow and potential flooding. More than 230,000 homes and businesses were without electricity Friday, with the vast majority of those outages in Mississippi and Tennessee, according to the outage tracking website poweroutage.us.
In Mississippi’s Lafayette County, where about 12,000 people were still without electricity mid-day Friday, emergency management agency spokesperson Beau Moore said he knows not everyone will get power back before the cold hits.
“It’s a race against time to get it on for those we can get it on for,” Moore said.
Arctic air moving into the Southeast will cause already frigid temperatures to plummet into the teens on Friday night in cities like Nashville, Tennessee, where many people still lacked power nearly a week after a massive storm dumped snow and ice across the eastern U.S., the National Weather Service said.
Forecasters say the subfreezing weather will persist in the eastern U.S. into February and there’s high chance of heavy snow in the Carolinas, Virginia and northeast Georgia this weekend, possibly up to a foot (30 centimeters) in parts of North Carolina. Snow is also possible along the East Coast from Maryland to Maine.
On Saturday night and early Sunday, forecasters expect intense winds accompanied by moderate to heavy snow that could lead to blizzard conditions for a time before the storm starts to move out to sea Sunday morning.
North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein declared a state of emergency Thursday in preparation for forecasts of several inches of snow statewide and possibly 1 foot in some locations, particularly in eastern counties and at the coast. Hundreds of state National Guard soldiers were ready to help remove stuck vehicles or fallen trees from roads.
And state Transportation Department workers, who have been removing remaining ice from roads, have already pretreated thoroughfares, agency Secretary Daniel Johnson said.
In Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, a beach town more accustomed to hurricanes, traffic jams and tourists, the National Weather Service predicted 6 inches of snow. The city has no snow removal equipment. Myrtle Beach Mayor Mark Kruea said they will “use what we can find” — maybe a motor grader or bulldozer to scrape snow off streets.
