NATCHEZ — While the majority of this weekend’s storm missed the Miss-Lou, the area is expected to see continued cold temperatures this week.

Jarred Allen, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Jackson, said by Friday he expected it to warm to 50 degrees during the day, but the early part of the week would be cold.

The weather service anticipates daytime temperatures from today to Thursday to be in the low 40s, and nighttime lows are expected to be below freezing.

“We have a low air mass coming in from the plain states keeping us residually cold,” Allen said.

Allen said by midweek the sky should be mostly clear.

Eddie Coleman, who was working to take down Christmas lights with the Natchez Public Works, said by this point of the year he is used to working in cold temperatures.

“I can’t say I’m looking forward to it, but I’m used to it so it’ll be all right,” Coleman said. “The worst thing is when there is a lot of moisture in the air, and it freezes to metal pipes. That is what I’m least looking forward to.”

Though Coleman admitted knowing it would be cold was a better alternative to the usual confusion involving the Miss-Lou’s weather.

“You don’t know how to dress here,” Coleman said. “One day, you’ll expect it to be cold and it’ll be hot, or you’ll expect it to be hot and its cold. I just figure, it’s better to have more than not enough, since you can always take a jacket off.”

Allen said it stayed warmer than expected in Natchez this past weekend, so the area missed much of the trouble that impacted the rest of the state.

“You guys fortunately missed out,” Allen said. “You did not get much rain, and the temperature stayed above freezing, so you did not have to deal with icing or freezing roads.”

Allen said one reason for the Miss-Lou’s luck was the system, which came out of the Gulf of Mexico, developed further north than anticipated. This created some warmer airs in the southern part of the state.

Allen said the National Weather Service in Jackson is tracking a system that could be similar to the one that hit this past weekend.

“It is a little far out, so we’ll have to fine tune it as we go, but there is a system coming in late next weekend that may have some wintry precipitation,” Allen said.