Metro Birmingham went through the Christmas Day severe weather event relatively unscathed, but areas in south Alabama were not as fortunate.

The weather system that was predicted to bring tornadoes and severe storms to central parts of the state saved its fury for the southwestern counties instead. A large tornado ripped through the area of downtown Mobile known as The Loop, doing heavy damage to numerous structures there. A video of that tornado, shot by a Mobile resident from an apartment building, can be viewed here.

The worst weather was confined to the south largely because the system moved in from Mississippi much more quickly than originally forecast, which meant that a warm air mass moving north from the Gulf Coast did not have a chance to warm up the atmosphere in the middle of the state, which would have then served as fuel for the storms to feed on as the cold front moved in. Instead, severe weather stayed well south of the I-20/59 corridor.

Rain will diminish throughout the night, and end completely by midday Wednesday. Temperatures will fall sharply, and highs will not get out of the middle 40s. Nighttime lows will drop to the upper 20s.