JACKSON — Parts of north Mississippi are under a winter weather advisory beginning at 6 p.m. Saturday into Sunday as a second wave of freezing rain moves into the region.
The National Weather Service said Saturday that ice accumulations are not expected to exceed one-tenth of inch — enough for motorists to be cautious with overnight temperatures dropping in the upper 20s to near freezing.
“With it being so cool, people will have to watch for any type of icing early in the (Sunday) morning. Temperatures will be warming Sunday — somewhere between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. — enough so that it is all rain,” said David Cox, a meteorologist with the weather service in Jackson, Miss.
The weather service in Memphis, Tenn., had 10 north Mississippi counties included in the winter weather advisory — Alcorn, Benton, Coahoma, DeSoto, Lafayette, Marshall, Panola, Quitman, Tallahatchie, Tate, Tippah, Tunica, Union and Yalobusha.
Cox said temperatures overnight would range from the upper 30s in Jackson to the upper 20s to lower 30s in north Mississippi. He said temperatures should improve by the middle of next week but rain will be in the forecast around the state until Tuesday.
He said high temperatures were expected to rise into the 40s from Jackson to north Mississippi on Sunday.
The Highway Patrol reported continuing icy roads in north Mississippi but no fatalities had been reported.
A spokeswoman for Entergy Mississippi says about 300 customers remained without power early Saturday in its service area in the Delta and northwest Mississippi. Power was expected to be restored by Saturday night.
“We have 342 outages in north Mississippi but only 300 are attributed to the story — 279 of those are in Tunica and the rest are scatted about here and there,” said Entergy’s Mara Hartmann.
“We really got lucky with this one,” Hartmann said.
Hartmann said extra crews placed in north Mississippi have been released for other assignments. She said the company has enough resources in north Mississippi to deal with the second wave of winter weather.
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