Thunderstorms predicted to polka-dot the week
Published 12:00 am Tuesday, March 31, 2009
A fast-moving storm with the potential for damaging winds and hail moved into Vicksburg and Warren County today, with more dangerous weather on the way Thursday and possibly Sunday.
Meteorologists for the National Weather Service in Jackson said today’s storm, expected to move into central Mississippi late this morning, should end around 6 tonight.
“There is no real concern about tornadoes,” said Dave Hamrick, meteorologist intern with the NWS. “We could see damaging straight-line winds and hail.” Isolated areas could see hail up to 1 inch in size today, he said.
Wednesday will be sunny and beautiful — “the calm between the storms,” Hamrick said, before another system moves in Thursday, predicted for the early afternoon. Thursday’s storm could dump an inch of rain on the county along with hail stones up to 2 inches, again only in certain areas.
Both storm systems will result from instability between temperatures on the ground and aloft, he said, with the higher, colder temperatures causing the hail.
“We don’t have much information yet about Sunday, but another frontal system looks like it may be coming through,” Hamrick said.
One-half to an inch of rain is forecast for today, closing out a month in which nearly twice as much rainfall as normal has been recorded — 9.32 inches as compared to the March average of 5.98.
Total rain for the year, however, remains short of averages. The total is 14.28 as opposed to the normal 16.31.
As residents across the southern half of Mississippi continue to clean up from last week’s tornadoes, City of Vicksburg emergency management director Anna Booth urged residents to sign up for CodeRED, the emergency weather notification system tied in to National Weather Service warnings. CodeRED automatically calls residents on their home or mobile phones when an emergency situation arises in their area.
About 315 households had signed up for CodeRED as of last week, Booth said. The system activated Wednesday around 11:35 p.m., calling residents to alert them to a severe thunderstorm warning. Booth said the calls were placed within 20 seconds of the official NWS warning over weather radios. Up to 1,000 calls per minute can be placed, she said.
City officials spent $15,000 on the technology in December. Residents can sign up for the free service online at www.vicksburg.org or by calling the city action line at 601-801-3411.
Booth said emergency officials recommend that residents purchase weather radios, which can be programmed specifically for Warren County and the areas from which local storms often come, such as Madison and Tensas parishes across the river, “but CodeRED is a good redundant source of storm warning information when residents are away from their weather radios or have turned them off.”
While weather radios alert the public to severe weather watches, CodeRED issues only weather warnings.
Six tornadoes ripped through Mississippi counties last week, including a severe one in Simpson and Lauderdale.
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Contact Pamela Hitchins at phitchins@vicksburgpost.com.