cold weather

The dairy aisle at a Publix supermarket in Tuscaloosa looked bare as people throughout the southern U.S. stock up on water, food, and generators as they prepare for the storm.

Alabama Power Company crews are on standby for power outage repairs in north Alabama this weekend.Nearly two thousand utility crews are for deployment to portions of north Alabama this weekend.

The National Weather Service in Huntsville says the Tennessee Valley, including the Huntsville area and the Shoals, could be in for a winter emergency starting as soon as Friday night. A cold front from the north combined with moisture coming up from the Gulf of Mexico could lead to roads left impassible by snow and ice.

Charity groups and municipal agencies in Jefferson County and Decatur are announcing that they will have warming stations open ahead of Monday night’s forecast with lows in the lower twenties along the Tennessee Valley. Below freezing overnight conditions are expected to continue until Thursday.

An arctic air blast swept south from Canada, spreading into the northern United States. Meanwhile, residents of the Pacific Northwest braced for possible mudslides and levee failures as floodwaters slowly recede. The concern for Alabama and the southeast are brutally cold temperatures tonight and early this week with lows in the mid-teens in some spots.

Huntsville, Dothan, Birmingham, and Garden City in Cullman County spread the word early about the brutal overnight cold. The low temperatures along the Tennessee Valley, over the weekend and into Monday morning, are forecast to be as low as the mid teens. Even the Wiregrass region toward the south was predicted to be in the mid-twenties.

Some of the first wintry weather of the season is on the way for much of the U.S. in the coming days, including potentially record low temperatures for parts of the South and snow in the Northern Plains. Alabama woke up in the upper twenties in Huntsville, upper forties in Mobile, and mid thirties over much of the rest of the state. Chillier conditions are yet to come.

Residents along the Alabama Gulf coast could see something they reportedly haven’t seen in seven years. There’s an eighty five percent chance of snow today. The Gulf coast got a taste of winter weather back in late 2017 and early 2018. That was a tenth of inch. Some forecasts put today’s snowfall at possibly two to five inches.

The forecast calls for frigid temperatures and the threat of black ice on the roads this weekend. This is Alabama’s second arctic blast in just over a week. The last cold snap left up to seven inches of snow, closed schools, and delayed airline flights.

Snow may soon be returning in the forecast across Alabama. The record books say mid-January is historically the coldest time of year in Central Alabama, which can bring wintery weather, ice, sleet and flurries. That could be the case next week, according to meteorologists.