Weather

An anticipated sweep of severe weather that blew through North Alabama over the long holiday weekend left Cullman County without any reports of significant damage.

A band of persistent rainy weather soaked the county with rain on New Year’s Day, and again on Monday. But forecasters’ concerns that the weather systems might also bring damaging storms were put to rest as the last of the rainy weather tapered off late Monday.

“We haven’t had anything reported,” said Cullman Emergency Management Agency Director Phyllis Little late Monday. “We are assuming that it has not been a problem for anyone in our area, at this point.”

Even as the last of the rain moved out, the National Weather Service (NWS) had already begun eyeing the approach of a very different sort of weather system — the snowy kind — that could bring a more wintry mix of precipitation later in the week.

It’s still too early, though, for forecasters to guess with any confidence whether, and how much, potential snowfall the Cullman area might see.

“There is the chance of some winter precipitation starting, they believe, on Friday,” said Little. “But it’s still far enough in the future that they’re not even sure what we’ll get, or how much — or even if we’ll get anything.”

The Huntsville NWS office currently anticipates a slight risk of light, accumulation-free snow on Friday, but qualifies that the confidence level for that forecast is currently low.

After a period of seasonable temperatures earlier in the week, temps are expected to take a dive beginning Thursday, with the high Friday potentially failing to break the freezing mark at 32 degrees.

“There is a possibility anywhere from Friday all the way through Sunday, and it could be anything from a flake of snow to something more significant. But it will probably Wednesday or even Thursday before we have a really firm idea of what we’re going to get.”

 

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