Lincoln County will get its first wintry mix of the year with temperatures dropping below the upper 30s today, which will bring with it ice and the possibility of light snow.

Either will cause bridges and roads to be slippery and caution is advised if driving.

The Brookhaven School District, Lincoln County School District, Brookhaven Academy and Mississippi School of the Arts in Brookhaven will dismiss early today in anticipation of hazardous road conditions later this afternoon.

“We want to get the kids home safely,” Lincoln County Superintendent Mickey Myers said.

Brookhaven, Lincoln County and MSA will dismiss at 1 p.m. BA will dismiss at 1:30 p.m.

A winter weather advisory from the National Weather Service is in effect Friday from 6 a.m. until midnight. The NWS said there could be a wintry mix of sleet, freezing rain and light snow.

Light rain will begin to change to a wintry mix of precipitation during the morning hours along the 1-20 corridor and by the afternoon across South Mississippi and Central Louisiana. Precipitation will taper off Friday evening.

“The weather will start out as cold rain while becoming a wintry mix of white rain and sleet at the some point Friday,” said Anna Wolverton, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

NWS has predicted a high of 38 degrees Saturday and a low of 24 degrees for Lincoln County. The temperatures will rise a little higher Sunday, but the high will be only 44 degrees with a low of 22 degrees.

“It’s kind of a cold snap and we get these throughout winter. Monday we’ll be back to normal. High temperatures will be in the mid-60s the rest of the week,” Wolverton said.

Although the freezing weather won’t be here for long, Wolverton advises everyone to take care of their pipes by leaving the cabinet doors open and the faucet dripping. People can also close off the doors to any rooms they’re not using to save heat, she said.

State Fire Marshal Mike Chaney, who is also commissioner of insurance, urges all Mississippians to start the New Year by practicing heating and fire safety.

“Using heating sources in a proper manner to stay warm during cold weather and having working smoke alarms in your home is literally the difference between life and death,” he said.

It is a message that he will continue to repeat in order to protect lives in Mississippi

Space heaters pose a much higher risk of fire, death and injury than central heating, and it cannot be stressed enough that using a stove to heat a home is extremely dangerous, he said.

“Every home should have a working smoke alarm. Working smoke alarms can cut the risk of people dying in home fires in half,” he added.

Fire safety education and preventing fire deaths continue to be priority goals of the State Fire Marshal’s office, which investigated over 50 reported fire deaths in 2016.