With the prospect of prolonged wet weather, the 78th annual Roy Martin Delta Band Festival and Christmas Parade has been moved indoors for the first time ever.
Meanwhile, the “iceless” skating is going back outdoors after an effort to bring it inside did not pan out.
As of this morning, elements of the Christmas parade were to be at two different indoor venues today.
The bands, beauties, mascots, social organizations, elected officials and Santa Claus will be at the Civic Center beginning at 3 p.m. The floats will be on display throughout the day at the Leflore County Agri-Center.
The fireworks display, which is scheduled to take place after dark on the Yazoo River, is still on for this evening.
Today’s events “will be different, but they will be fun,” said Beth Stevens, executive director of the Greenwood-Leflore County Chamber of Commerce.
She said the decision to go with the alternate locations was based on several factors.
“What people don’t understand is it takes hours to line that parade up. We literally start at 9 a.m.,” Stevens said.
Rescheduling the event is not an option, she said: “You can’t reschedule a Christmas parade with bands from three states.”
Organizers had tried to set up the “iceless” skating at the Agri-Center as well, but the installers discovered that the dirt surface was too uneven, said Brantley Snipes, executive director of Main Street Greenwood.
Therefore, Snipes said, it’s back to the original venue, the arboretum between the Keesler and Veterans bridges on the north side of the Yazoo River.
The rink will be open starting at 9 a.m. Saturday and go all day and into the night. Snipes said that lights are being brought in to extend the time as long as possible.
Main Street is counting on a break in precipitation Saturday.
“They are saying it’s going to be clear tomorrow,” Snipes said this morning. “It there are more torrential downpours, it will be canceled. This is all we can do at this point. It just didn’t work on the Ag-Center surface.”
As for today’s weather outlook, David Cox, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Jackson, said this morning that conditions in Greenwood weren’t likely to improve.
He said there was a freezing rain advisory from 1 to 8 p.m. today “just to your west” with potential ice accumulations of 0.1 to 0.2 inch.
Behind an incoming cold front was a lot of precipitation, which will change over to freezing rain as temperatures begin to drop, Cox said.
Temperatures in Greenwood were expected to drop into the low 30s this afternoon and upper 20s tonight, he said.
In far north Leflore County, Cox said, residents could encounter freezing rain as the front pushes through.
Although the storm system was expected to clear late this evening, another front, with the possibility of freezing rain, will be pushing through Greenwood on Saturday afternoon, he said.
• Contact Bob Darden at 581-7239 or bdarden@gwcommonwealth.com.
