Please Don’t Drive

Roads have improved in many areas this afternoon with a good bit of drying, but secondary roads are still a mess and traffic has become heavy on some of the major arteries.

New accidents are occurring, causing additional traffic snarls.

We don’t want people getting stranded again tonight.

The biggest headaches are east of Birmingham on I-20, on I-65 southbound from Homewood south, and on highway 280 eastbound.

Highway 150 is passable but down to one lane due to abandoned vehicles. Morgan Road and Parkwood in Bessemer: Accident with car teetering on cliff.

AVOID AT ALL COSTS:
…I-65 south of downtown. Creeping up to Alford Ave.
…US-31 in both directions near going over Shades Mountain. (SB traffic is using the NB lanes as well! Only one lane is coming north now.)
…US-280 in both directions from Mountain Brook to Chelsea. One hour from Colonnade to Whole Foods! Road still snowpacked due to shade.
…I-20 eastbound from Irondale to Leeds and westbound between Leeds and I-459
…I-459 northbound between I-65 and Liberty Park. Ice is reported on Interstate.

Use extreme caution on all other roads in the Birmingham area if you MUST drive.

TO TUSCALOOSA
…Lots of questions about I-59 to Tuscaloosa: it looks good now from downtown Birmingham all the way to Tuscaloosa

If you can, continue to stay where you are and don’t drive. Allow road crews and transportation workers to get the roads cleared. Many roads have been sanded in the Birmingham Metro area.

Officials are taking folks from shelters in Homewood to their cars at I-65 in an effort to remove the backlog of abandoned automobiles while ice is melting.

Temperatures are still below freezing (28F at BHM) and water that is standing on area roads will quickly refreeze as the sun sets. Overnight lows are expected to drop to 9-13F tonight. This will result in deadly black ice that is hard to spot as you drive. Once you hit it, you can go into an out of control slide or spin with bad consequences.

We should go above freezing around noon tomorrow and with total sunshine, roads should begin to improve rapidly. Highs tomorrow will range between 40-43F.

How does 62F on Saturday sound? We’ll take it!

(Big thanks to Skywatchers and Social Media for the reports!)

Category: Alabama's Weather, Winter Weather