(Winter Storm Watch shown in blue-gray on map above. The pink in Arkansas shows a Winter Storm Warning. The highlighted areas in Alabama are for an Ice Storm Warning (violet) and a Winter Weather Advisory (purple).
The National Weather Service still believes this weekend’s winter storm could have a significant impact on the northwestern half of Mississippi. Forecaster Eric Carpenter says, in some areas, we’re looking at what could be a rare combination of cold temperatures and moisture…
“A pretty unusual mix of those parameters. It doesn’t come around very often…”
And while there’s snow in the forecast for parts of this area, it’s the ice that the Weather Service is most worried about…
“We’re looking at the potential for significant amounts of freezing rain and sleet across our area and those could have some pretty major impacts…”
This part of central Mississippi could wind up with a good bit of ice and some snow, but some uncertainty has been introduced into the forecast. Carpenter says some of their computer models don’t agree on where freezing temperatures will be in place as the heaviest of the rain begins to fall. The line of uncertainty runs right through this area…
“It seems to be along the Natchez Trace…”
The latest thinking is that the rain may not start changing over to a wintry mix until early Saturday along and north of a Yazoo City-Columbus line, mainly in the form of freezing rain. And the Weather Service says areas southeast of the Trace may not see much in the way of winter precipitation until late Saturday or Sunday. Ice accumulations of at least a quarter-inch are considered likely along and northwest of the Parkway. And moderate accumulations of snow are now being forecast in Kosciusko and Durant on Sunday.
Much of this area will be under a winter storm watch beginning Friday afternoon.
