Get ready to bundle up for what forecasters say will be the coldest weather of the season. Temperatures from the Tennessee Valley to central Alabama are expected to plunge to the upper twenties tonight and Friday night. Weather watchers say these readings are twenty degrees below the average for this time of year. Mark Rose is a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Birmingham. He says the frigid conditions are due to a polar vortex coming down from Canada. “Record lows for this time of year are in the mid-twenties, so we’re going to also be near record lows for this time of the year. But, it’s just a pattern kind of like what we’ve seen even some of last winter, so it looks like we’re continuing this trend of kind of colder weather this winter too.” Lows along the coast gulf will be in the mid-thirties. Despite the cold forecast, Rose says that doesn’t mean Alabama will have a colder winter. However the chilly conditions will hang around until at least next week.
Tonight’s cold weather is prompting action in the Huntsville area. Advocates for the homeless are making plans to open an emergency shelter as the coldest air of the season surges into Alabama. Officials at the North Alabama Coalition for the Homeless say they plan to meet today to plan for the emergency warming center. Church leaders who may to allow their buildings to be used as a temporary shelter are asked to attend the meeting. Forecasters have issued a freeze warning for a large part of Alabama. The National Weather Service said the coldest temperatures so far this season are expected to filter into the central part of the state tonight and into early Friday morning.
The nation is taking time this week to honor and remember our military servicemen and women. The group Disabled American Veterans is calling for better policies and legislation regarding their health. Joseph Violante* is the national director of the group. He says veterans coming home now are facing problems that weren’t around before… “Military members who would have died on the battlefield are now living and coming home and the care that they need is extraordinary and very costly so we’re seeing a big difference there and a reason our government, administration and congress needs to ensure that there are proper levels of funding for VA.” Violante says we are seeing a large number of veterans returning home with recent troop draw downs and women are making up a larger number of veterans than ever before.
A female prison inmate in Alabama is free to pursue a lawsuit over a state law. U.S. Chief District Judge Keith Watkins is declining to dismiss the lawsuit by Judith Ann Neelley. She an inmate at the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women who claims a 2003 state law unconstitutionally denied her the chance for parole. The Montgomery Advertiser reports Neelley was convicted of killing 13-year-old Lisa Ann Millican. In 1999, Governor Fob James commuted Neelley's sentence to life, which would have made her eligible for parole. State lawmakers revoked that chance at parole with the law Neely is challenging.
