Experts: No early spring in this area

Published 10:40 am Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog, may not have seen his shadow last week, but meteorologists aren’t so sure it will be an early spring for Mississippi.

“It doesn’t look like it thus far,” Warren County Emergency Management Director John Elfer said.

Highs will be in the low 50s Tuesday and Wednesday and in the mid-60s Thursday and Friday before returning to the low 50s Saturday and Sunday. Tuesday night, the low is predicted to be 29.

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“We don’t put too much credence in the groundhog,” said Dan Byrd, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Jackson.

He referenced a one-month outlook on the National Weather Service webpage that has temperatures for February in Vicksburg to be below normal and precipitation to be above normal.

“Here in Mississippi, we get spring pretty early anyway,” Byrd said.

A cold front moved in Monday that caused large wind gusts up to 40 mph. Elfer said there was a wind advisory in effect Monday afternoon.

“It’s not a good day to burn things,” Elfer said.

A breeze is still expected Tuesday but significantly less than Monday’s gusts.

Byrd will be giving a talk next Feb. 18 to Emergency Management directors on the weather outlook, coming out of the El Nino pattern and the potential it has to cause bad weather.

“We’ll know more next week,” Elfer said. “That’s typically the years you have a significant event.”

Elfer said he’s seen snow in April, which is the business weather month. He said there is nothing severe predicted now but people should get ready closer to March and April. The last big tornado Vicksburg suffered was April 28, 2014, he said.