A Philadelphia church lost its steeple as Francine swept through Thursday. (Photo credit: Neshoba Baptist Association)
What’s left of Francine is expected to dissipate in Arkansas today. And it’s pretty clear now that Mississippi dodged a bullet. While there was some damage across the state, Chad Entremont at the National Weather Service in Jackson says, with a tropical system tracking right through the heart of Mississippi, it could have been a lot worse….
“It wasn’t a very large storm. Typically, larger storms have a lot more momentum and a lot more wind so when they dissipate, all of that energy is still translated to stronger surface winds and gusts. And for our sake, it was, again, a smaller system.”
The fact that it’s been so dry helped to minimize the impact of the heavy rains…
“The ground and soil across the vast majority of the state was kind of needing rainfall, so we were able to absorb two, three, maybe four inches fairly easily.”
It also helped that Francine never came close to stalling out across Mississippi…
“This system had a steady pace. I believe it was between 15 and 18 miles per hour. It kind of steadily moved northward after landfall.”
In Neshoba County, Francine’s winds, estimated at 40 to 50 mph, blew down trees and some power lines across the county. The steeple was torn off the roof at Trinity Baptist Church in Philadelphia. There was also scattered tree damage and at least one utility pole down in Attala County and elsewhere across this part of central Mississippi.
