Vicksburg and Warren County residents waking today to another weekday morning of snow and ice can look forward to a weekend with temperatures approaching 70 degrees.

The storm that passed through the area Wednesday afternoon and night left a frosting of snow in yards and fields and patches of ice on county and city roads, resulting in the third weather-related school cancellation in a month. The city’s water plant at Vicksburg’s harbor reported 0.2 of an inch of snow.

“It’s unheard of, at least in the last decade,” said Vicksburg Warren School District Superintendent Dr. Elizabeth Duran Swinford, who made the decision around 4 a.m. to cancel classes for the 9,000 students in the public school system. Swinford consulted with local law enforcement and her transportation staff but also drove the roads herself to test conditions, finding ice, slush and “fishtailing cars,” she said.

“We considered a delayed start, but even if we started school at 10, buses would have to be out on the roads by 8 a.m., and the temperature is not expected to get above freezing until after noon,” Swinford said early this morning.

Vicksburg Catholic School and Porters Chapel Academy also were closed. Hinds Community College’s Vicksburg Branch was open for classes today.

Skies were expected to clear by midmorning, but the National Weather Service was forecasting temperatures remaining in the 30s today and dipping into the teens tonight. The weather service reported the overnight low Wednesday was 23 degrees.

Friday, however, is forecast to warm to near 50, Saturday to 60 and Sunday could reach 70 degrees, the NWS said.

Wednesday night and this morning, the Mississippi Department of Transportation reported slippery roads and ice on bridges in nearly 50 of the state’s 82 counties. Many schools across the state were closed.

City of Vicksburg and Warren County offices were on delayed schedules, opening at 10 a.m., but no power outages were reported locally, Entergy spokesman Don Arnold said.

Traffic accidents were minor.

“Fortunately, throughout the night we had no serious accidents, mostly just reports of vehicles sliding off the side of the road,” said Sheriff Martin Pace.

Problem spots included Old Jackson Road near Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Culkin and Sherman roads. Old Jackson Road was closed for a time Wednesday evening. Deputies this morning were reporting the road “passable, as long as people stay within the ruts.”

Culkin and Sherman roads were iced-over in areas, and one county resident who drove in to the city on Oak Ridge Road said the road was iced over from near the Yazoo County line as far south as Flowers Hill Road.

Pace said the northern parts of the county, at Eagle Lake, Redwood and along Mississippi 3 near the Yazoo County line, were hit noticeably harder with snow than those in the south. A driver coming into Vicksburg from Claiborne County before 7 this morning said ice on the roads became noticeable around Yokena.

But areas all over Warren County saw patches of ice cause minor traffic problems Wednesday night, including fender-benders on Indiana Avenue near South Frontage Road and in store parking lots, and cars sliding off Halls Ferry, Oak Ridge Road, Interstate 20 near U.S. 61 North.

Scattered patches of ice were also reported in the city on such thoroughfares as Drummond Street and Halls Ferry Road, but only one minor wreck was reported Wednesday night, near Clay and I-20, said police Chief Walter Armstrong.

Across the Mississippi River, Louisiana state offices were closed today in East Carroll, Lincoln, Madison, Morehouse, Ouachita, Richland, Union and West Carroll parishes.

Regionally, temperatures dipped well below zero in chunks of the South early today. The storm dropped 2 feet of snow on parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma and left at least three people dead.

By early morning, temperatures had dipped to minus 18 in Fayetteville, Ark., and to minus 27 in Bartlesville, Okla., the NWS reported.

Mississippi state offices north of Interstate 20 were closed until at least noon today under an order issued by Gov. Haley Barbour. Conditions were reported much better south of Interstate 20.

Some areas of north Mississippi reported 5 inches of snow.