A few road notes, extremely cold air

…Comments encouraged to help everyone know what icy roads/bridges you may have seen or heard about…

As far as travel issues, temperatures are very cold this morning, with temperatures between 15 and 25 over most of north and central Alabama.  Any slush or water on roads yesterday afternoon has frozen, and there were already accidents and icy roads occurring even in the BHM metro last evening (especially NE suburbs like Irondale on I-20, I-459 near Irondale/Trussville, and Hwy 31 from end Red Mountain north).  There are slick spots, especially on bridges, all over central Alabama.  If you’re driving to work this morning, please allow extra time and use extreme caution (plenty of room between you and the car in front of you, lower speed, don’t wait until last second to slow down for stop signs, traffic lights, or cars braking ahead of you). 

Hopefuly, roads will improve some more during the day today, with sunshine, dry air and wind helping to dry off more of the ice.  But, be careful again driving home this afternoon.

As you can see on the chart above (a computer model, but pretty close to our official forecast except we expect 50s on Saturday), it will not make it above freezing all day today, and even if it does tomorrow, it will only last for 4 or 5 hours.  Lows Thursday and Friday mornings will be in the teens as far south as Clanton and possibly Montgomery, with single digits over a good bit of the Tennessee Valley, as snow cover will aid in making it even colder.   We will finally start a nice warming trend Friday with a high in the 40s.

Category: Winter Weather