The weather over the last week in Mississippi can only be described as extreme with parts of the state being hit by tornadoes, floods, ice and snow storms.
Beginning with record warmth combined with an approaching arctic cold front on Jan. 13., the first tornadoes of the year were spawn in southeastern Mississippi, causing significant damage across parts of two counties.
Then came the cold air behind the front, which combined with lingering moisture and several upper level disturbances to lead to a prolonged ice storm event Jan. 14-15 with the Delta and much of northwestern Mississippi being coated in a quarter to up to a half-inch of ice.
Further south in the warmer air, waves of rainfall on already saturated soils led to flooding as much of central Mississippi remained under a flash flood watch.
This would be topped off just over a day later on Jan. 17 with a significant but fast-moving winter storm that dumped widespread amounts of two to as much as six inches of snow across central sections of the state.
The capital city of Jackson received its first snowfall in two years with a daily record of 1.7 inches, which was more snow than Chicago (1.3 inches) has seen all season so far through the first 20 days of January.
Most of the snow and ice would quickly melt late on Jan. 17 with rapidly clearing skies and warming temperatures that rose into the 40s to around 50 degrees. But this added to already saturated soils from excessive rainfall over the past several weeks.
This leads to the flooding problem that continues to evolve on area rivers around the state including on the Pearl River in Jackson, which is expected to crest at least four feet above flood stage by early Wednesday.
Fortunately, a much calmer week is ahead with the next chances of rain coming into the state late Thursday into Friday with a quick-moving cold front.
High temperatures are forecast to only rise into the 30s and 40s north and central and 50s south on Tuesday before warming up dramatically by Thursday with highs well up in the 60s to near 70 across the state.
This will go along with cold low temperatures over the next few nights in the 20s and 30s.
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