A blast of winter weather gripped Columbus, coating the city and Lowndes County in about 3 inches of snow, sleet and freezing rain Sunday and today. Hundreds of businesses and schools in north Mississippi, including across the Golden Triangle, canceled classes today as the storm set in.
Mississippi State University, East Mississippi Community College and Mississippi University for Women closed their campuses today. Also announcing closings Sunday afternoon for Monday were public and private schools in Columbus, Starkville and West Point, and in Lowndes, Noxubee, Monroe, Oktibbeha counties.
Many businesses and doctor”s clinics also told workers and customers they”d be closed or work reduced hours today.
A winter storm warning for north Mississippi counties including the Golden Triangle expired at 6 a.m. today, and the National Weather Service issued a winter weather advisory, remaining in effect until noon, warning of freezing drizzle throughout the area.
National Weather Service Meteorologist Daniel Lamb said that, with a high of 35 and cloudy skies, some of the snow and ice may stick until Tuesday.
Temperatures dropped below freezing Sunday night as rain, sleet and snow fell across Lowndes, Oktibbeha and Clay counties. Several inches of snow accumulated in local counties overnight, but by 6 a.m., the snow was melting into icy slush, creating hazardous driving conditions.
The Columbus Police Department reported 10 wrecks Sunday with no serious injuries, said Public Information Officer Terrie Songer. No wrecks had been reported in the city by 8 a.m. today. City road crews put salt on city bridges, but Songer warned residents to stay off roads through today, as weather remains treacherous and is expected to freeze bridges again tonight.
Mississippi Highway Patrol spokesman Brian Mobley said Starkville-based troopers had responded to “numerous wrecks,” including several at ice-coated bridges, but didn”t have a final count yet.
“It was a bad situation,” he said. “There”s nothing to compare it to. I”m 32 years old and I haven”t seen anything like this since I was 6.”
Mobley warned people to stay off the roads as much as possible.
“Unless you have an emergency situation, life or death, stay off the roads,” he said.
The winter storm did not cause major outages in Columbus or the surrounding 4-County Electric Power Association coverage area, according to Columbus Light and Water General Manager Todd Gale and 4-County spokesman Jon Turner.
“We”re good,” Turner said. “We dodged a major bullet.” He said he wasn”t aware of any outages in the system, which serves most of Lowndes, Oktibbeha, Clay and Noxubee counties.
“If we did” have outages, they were minor, he said, adding that refreezing weather tonight shouldn”t seriously impact power service.
Mississippi spared
Mississippi was spared the worst of the storm, compared to neighboring states. In the Golden Triangle and through much of Mississippi, winds helped keep the snow and sleet from accumulating in trees, which would have weighed them down, impacting power lines. No deaths were reported on Mississippi roads due to the weather, though cars sliding off roads kept police and emergency workers busy Sunday and today.
The storm caused at least one death in Louisiana. The governors of Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee declared emergencies. Snow and ice had blanketed several cities, including up to 3 inches in parts of Atlanta, which rarely gets so much.
The mix of ice and snow shut down the northern half of Alabama. Roads were virtually deserted from the Birmingham metro area all the way north to the Tennessee Valley. The main problem in central Alabama was ice, but the northern counties had as much as 9 inches of snow.
Dozens of people were at Birmingham”s airport hoping to catch flights to Arizona for the BCS title game between Auburn and Oregon. Temperatures aren”t predicted to rise much above freezing in the region, so travel problems could last through Tuesday.
Alabama Gov. Bob Riley said workers had readied snow and salt trucks to help clear icy roads, and he asked all residents to stay home all day today unless it was imperative to travel.
Birmingham roads were ice-covered and treacherous, weather service meteorologist Mark Rose said. Some areas were reporting at least a tenth of an inch of ice in the central Alabama city, he said. Quite a few roads were closed Sunday night.
Joanne Culin, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Jackson, said the worst weather in Mississippi and Louisiana happened Sunday and early Monday along the Interstate 20 corridor.
Northern parts of Mississippi received 4 to 9 inches of snow, Culin said. The more dangerous conditions, however, were expected along I-20, because the precipitation was likely to be freezing rain and sleet.
Tuesday election still on
Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann said that Tuesday”s special election in Mississippi has not been postponed due to the weather. North Mississippi voters will be voting for Northern District transportation commissioner, and Tupelo area voters will be heading to the polls in an election to fill new U.S. Rep. Alan Nunnelee”s open state Senate seat.
Hosemann said that his agency does not have the authority to cancel any election, and that elections will go on unless he is ordered otherwise. Gov. Haley Barbour”s office, which would have the authority to cancel the vote, said it was monitoring the weather.
In northern Louisiana, state police said a woman died Sunday in a single-vehicle crash on an ice covered highway. Kaneshia Logan, 30, died when her SUV slid down an embankment on Interstate 20 and hit a tree, trooper Cordell Williams said.
In Alabama, Auburn University students will have to find somewhere other than campus to watch the Tigers play in the championship bowl game Monday. The university has canceled all viewing parties and other events planned as the state prepares for severe winter weather.
Georgia was expected to get up to 6 inches of snow. Forecasters there said the storm could also bring sleet and freezing rain lasting into Tuesday.
In eastern Tennessee, the Weather Service said 4 to 6 inches of snow could fall by Sunday evening, with the heaviest snow falling early today.
Meanwhile, residents flocked to grocery stores to stock up on milk, bread and other essentials Sunday, as businesses and schools told workers and students to stay home. Grocery stores were reporting empty shelves as early as Sunday morning.
Power company crews from as far away as Ohio were traveling to the area to help with any mass power outages.
Staff Reporter Ryan Poe contributed to this story.
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