MDOT advises caution while driving in winter weather

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A dusting of snow lays across an open field on the Mississippi State University campus adjacent to the Hunter Henry Center on Saturday, Christmas Day. Photo by Paul Sims.

JACKSON — The Mississippi Department of Transportation has issued travel alerts for numerous counties in our area.
The agency advises drivers to be cautious on bridges and overpasses in the following counties: Tippah, Alcorn, Tishomingo, Prentiss, Union, Lee, Itawamba, Montgomery, Webster and Choctaw.
Snow and ice may make those bridges and overpasses slick.
The National Weather Service says snow showers that fall in northeast Mississippi and northwest Alabama could make driving difficult.

Today’s weather scene

According to http//www.weather.com, cold dry high pressure takes firm control of the South Monday. Gusty northwest winds will linger across the Southeast. A final few snow showers will dot the Appalachians along the Tennessee-North Carolina border.
The cold and temperatures will be the main story. From the lower Mississippi Valley eastward, temperatures will be 10 to 20 degrees below average.
Highs later in the day across the South will range from the 20s in the southern Appalachians to the 50s in south Florida and near 70 degrees across the southern tip of Texas.
With high pressure overhead, Tuesday will start off equally cold if not a few degrees colder across the Southeast which means another freeze for Florida and more record lows.
On the west side of the high pressure, moisture will bring to return to the south-central states and showers will break out from central and eastern Texas to Arkansas.
The South is in for a big warm up, beginning in the southern Plains and spreading eastward, mid to late week. Accompanying this warm up will be rain and thunderstorms in the lower Mississippi Valley, shifting into the Southeast just in time to kick off the New Year.