West Alabama Friday Briefing

Good morning West Alabama! It is Friday, January 10, 2025. It is the 10th day of the new year with 355 days remaining.

Friday Morning Briefing:

Well, that was an interesting drive into town at 5:00 this morning. After awakening to a beautiful blanketing of snow and ice across my yard and the street in front; it dawned on me that I was going to have to drive to work in that. Fortunately, there were no issues.

There had been enough traffic to leave tire pathways to follow, the city and state had done a good job of pre-treating and treating roadways and the temperature was just under freezing so that limited slippery spots.

As I made way down Lurleen Wallace Blvd. I was repeatedly passed by people in large pickups spraying the slush everywhere, covering car windshields and making driving that should not have been, hazardous.  They were driving far too fast for the conditions and that endangered themselves and other drivers. This behavior led to several crashes and a number of abandoned vehicles that slid off the road during the early morning hours.

I even encountered one driver with a cellphone in his hand, texting and driving on slippery roads. That is not good safety on a blue sky, dry road. And we wonder why northerners say southerners can't drive in the snow.

In spite of ourselves, hard work limited the number of roadway and other problems. Thanks to state, county and municipal emergency management agencies, local and state law enforcement, road crews and others who spent all night working to keep us safe on the roads and the power crews out in freezing conditions restoring power outages.

Conditions are improved in our area. However, officials are concerned that any moisture remaining on roadways tonight could refreeze, creating black ice and more hazardous driving conditions.

(Opinions expressed in Morning Briefing are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the ownership, management staff and sponsors of Townsquare Media Tuscaloosa.)

Weather:

Frozen precipitation has already switched to rain across most of West Alabama except for northern Lamar, Fayette and Walker counties northward. The National Weather Service is expected to remove most of West Alabama from Winter Storm Warning and Advisory by noon.

While the ambient temperature is above normal, road temperatures are still at or just below freezing according to ALDOT. That will make road improvement slow in some areas.

The cold will not disappear, Saturday will be cold across West and Central Alabama, with highs in the mid 30s to low 40s, but no moisture is in the forecast.

The Forecast: 

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