Okay, let’s get our minds off our ugly heat wave and drought and look back at a different time to psychologically cool us off. Will we have another event like this in the coming winter?
While I was still in the National Weather Service, working the midnight shift on February 1, 1985, I wrote this special weather statement which is self-explanatory. I pulled this from my vast files this morning and could not resist.
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SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BIRMINGHAM AL
3:15 AM CST FRI FEB 1 1985
DAMAGING ICE STORM NORTHWEST ALABAMA–WINTER STORM WARNING
A Winter Storm Warning continues in effect for nine Northwest Alabama counties through Saturday.
The counties are…Lauderdale…Colbert…Franklin…Marion…Lawrence…Winston…Limestone…Madison…and Morgan. This, of course, also includes such cities as Florence, Decatur, Huntsville, Moulton, Russellville, Haleyville and Hamilton.
The National Weather Service emphasizes that this is a very serious situation. The ice storm will be of damaging proportions. There is potential major damage to trees and utility lines and numerous highways will become extremely hazardous or impassable.
Residents of Northwest Alabama should immediately take precautions for this serious winter storm. There will likely be numerous and extended power outages.
The freezing rain and sleet may change to snow later today with total snow and ice accumulations of 3 to 5 inches possible.
It is likely that serious icing will spread east and south to other parts of North Alabama later today. A Winter Storm Watch is already in effect for the rest of North Alabama north of the Tuscaloosa-Jasper-Oneonta-Fort Payne line.
At 3:00 o’clock this morning power lines were already falling in Southern Lawrence County from the ice load. On Monte Sano Mountain, on Huntsville’s eastern edge, the ice load was heavy enough to bring down power lines and at least one tree. The Lauderdale County EMA Office reported some ice accumulations as much as two inches.
…At 3:00 o’clock this morning, it was 25 degrees with snow, sleet, thunder and lightning at Muscle Shoals in Northwest Alabama. This was 45 degrees colder than the springlike 70 degrees in Dothan at 3 AM.
…The Alabama State Trooper post at Florence reports that one of their units in Northwest Alabama has encountered so much sleet on some roads, that it is scraping the bottom of the State Trooper unit.
PS: The ice load became so heavy during this storm that a number of chicken houses in NW Alabama collapsed.
