Birmingham, Alabama.  Strong winds are ushering in much colder air. Temperatures plummeting.

The big snowstorm for the northeastern states is underway with as much as 3 inches already accumulating in Washington DC.  Meanwhile strong northwest winds are bringing much colder weather to central Alabama, and by morning we will be down in the 20-25 degree range, with a few spots up north, like Haleyville probably getting into the teens. Wednesday will look a lot better than Tuesday did with much more sunshine.  Despite that, it will not warm up very much at all as high temperatures will barely crest above 40 in Birmingham, and with the wind, it will feel considerably colder.  Wednesday night will bring another frigid one with lows again in the low to mid 20’s again, but at least the wind will diminish.  Thursday will remain dry, but some clouds will increase ahead of the next storm system.  Low pressure will develop in the western Gulf of Mexico Thursday and then proceed east-southeastward.  The actual low center will track rather far south of the coast which might take most of the precipitation south of central Alabama.  However it looks as if enough energy might fee in from the northern branch of the jet stream to activate the moisture in places and possibly give us a quick shot of snow Friday afternoon.  If that scenario plays out, there could even be some accumulation, perhaps up to an inch.  We will look at this some more over the next couple of days.