I was thinking along the same lines, Julia, but not sure how cold it has been in Alabama. Still, if they were planted fairly recently and it has been cold, windy and sunny they could well have winter-burn, which apparently isn't unusual on Leyland cypress.
Around here Thuja /arborvitae always go an off colour in winter, "microbiota" (Microbiota decussata) are even worse. I'm not sure the exact mechanism for that but in those cases it isn't necessarily a "burn" per se because the plants return to a normal green in spring.
My understanding is that Leyland cypress doesn't typically do that but, as you say, best thing is to wait it out and see what happens, especially if they are still green on the inside and just brown on the tips. That looks to be the case in one picture, hard to say with the other (are they of the same individual plant?). If the brown bits really are dead then they won't green up, and it won't regrow from old bare wood.
