Heavy rainfall and flash flooding have caused traffic problems and a number of possible event cancellations in Leflore County.
The downpour comes after a long dry spell. Before Monday, the National Weather Service in Jackson recorded only 0.74 inches of rainfall for the month of November.
That number has risen since more than 8 inches of rain has fallen the last 72 hours, according the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Greenwood. In the last 24 hours, the Corps measured 3.81 inches.
Marty Pope, a service hydrologist for the National Weather Service, said the dry spell helped prevent what could have been a much worse situation.
"The soil is able to absorb a lot more rain," Pope said. "If we didn't have the dry weather going into the event, it probably would have been a lot worse."
This morning, baseball fields and a play ground at Whittington Park in Greenwood were submerged beneath giant puddles of rainfall. Along U.S. 82 East, a car had lodged in a ditch.
If the rain continues past 1 p.m., Main Street Greenwood will cancel its Lighting of the Courthouse event, scheduled for 4 p.m. today, event organizer Lisa Cookston said.
"It doesn't look good," she said. "It hasn't been called off, but I doubt it's going to go on."
Since the lighting is an outdoor event, it will be canceled, not continued or postponed, Cookston said.
Schools in Greenwood and Leflore County are monitoring the weather situation but plan to run schedules as normal.
"We're watching the weather reports and would make a decision tomorrow morning as to where we stand, but the forecast looks like everything is going to clear up tonight," said James Mattox, assistant superintendent of Greenwood Schools.
Inman, an area engineer for the Corps, said the weather will delay the Corps' dredging project. With the swollen water in the Yazoo River, workers cannot maneuver the dredge under the bridges. But the latest report from the National Weather Service indicates that the Yazoo will stay below flooding levels.
"The water will be gone in a few days, as soon as it quits raining, if it ever does," Inman said. "I know there's a lot of people that will be upset, but if you live in a low-lying area, this just naturally occurs."
