With continued storm systems moving through the Cullman area in recent weeks, the threat of flooding and isolated wind damage shows there’s never a season when North Alabama isn’t completely free from the threat of severe weather. But as spring approaches, local municipalities are joining with the state for the return of the annual severe weather preparedness sales tax holiday.

This weekend, local residents will have a tax-free opportunity to stock up on emergency preparedness supplies. The county’s three cities — Cullman, Hanceville, and Good Hope — all have waived local sales taxes alongside the state’s tax waiver on qualifying items.

Beginning just after midnight Friday, Feb. 21, and ending at midnight on Sunday, Feb. 23 severe weather preparedness items like weather radios, batteries, flashlights and first-aid kits will be sold without added sales tax throughout Cullman County.

Covered items can’t exceed $60, except for generators, which are covered if they cost $1,000 or less. The three-day tax holiday eliminates the state’s four-percent sales tax, as well as local sales taxes, on all eligible items.

The tax holiday comes at the end of Alabama’s Severe Weather Awareness Week, which draws renewed attention to the dangers of severe weather and how to prepare for it. The threat of strong to violent tornadoes and severe weather typically ramps up late February into March, ahead of the height of the severe weather season, which peaks from March through May.

This is the ninth year for the state’s severe weather tax holiday, and it arrives just ahead of the ninth anniversary of the April 27, 2011 tornadoes and storms that devastated Cullman County as well as large portions of North Alabama. The 2011 event produced three tornadoes, which tore through the area in a day-long bout of severe weather that extended from Hanceville all the way to the City of Cullman, as well as Fairview in the east and Bremen in the southwest.

Alabama is one of three states offering a severe weather preparedness sales tax holiday this year; the others are Texas and Virginia. For a full list of eligible tax-free items, visit alabamaretail.org/alabamasalestaxholidays.

Benjamin Bullard can be reached by phone at 256-734-2131 ext. 145.