It’s been a little over a week since a winter storm, a rarity in Alabama, was forecasted to impact parts of Central Alabama. In Selma, the storm’s impact was limited, outside of treacherous road conditions overnight, and no snow fell.

Area schools were off that Friday as superintendents guarded against a potentially dangerous situation for buses in the afternoon. With school out, all afterschool activities, including basketball games, were cancelled that evening.

Since there was no snow in parts of the state, people were critical on social media. To be fair, we received almost no criticism, but meteorologists around the state were blasted by critics on social media.

Although I’m no meteorologist, from talking to the professionals at the National Weather Service in Birmingham on a daily basis, I could tell just how difficult it was to predict exactly what the storm was going to do. Weather in itself can be difficult to forecast, but winter storms in the south aren’t a common occurrence.

We ran a winter storm story every day that week and spoke to a meteorologist each day, trying to get the most up to date weather information possible in the hands of readers. The phrases “confidence is increasing” and “transition zone” were common inclusions in those stories, as the meteorologists explained to us how the forecast changed throughout the week. It was difficult to tell all week exactly where the snow/rain line was going to be and how much potential there was for sleet and ice.

In our stories, we’re always careful when using the word “snow” because we don’t want to cause unnecessary panic, or in some cases excitement, but it was clear that winter precipitation had a real chance to fall in Selma. As a weather system gets closer to impacting an area, it’s a lot easier to know what it’s going to do, so we continued to update our stories frequently. As it turns out, the impact in Selma was minimal, but that doesn’t mean anyone was wrong.

Meteorologists predicted the weather the best they could with the information they had available, which is all we can ask of them. Our local superintendents took that information and made the best decision they could to protect our students, regardless of whether it snowed or not.

Although it’s not winter weather, there’s a possibility for severe weather going into Saturday night and Sunday morning.  We’ll contact the NWS in Birmingham and keep you updated on any possible weather moving this way.  Perhaps no rain will fall this weekend and we’ll be able to enjoy Saturday and Sunday outside. That’s the best-case scenario, but there could be a real chance for severe storms and tornadoes.

No matter what’s forecasted, it’s better to be safe than sorry.