By now most people have seen the videos coming out of the Dallas/Fort Worth areas of Texas showing big rigs and trailers thrown into the air like so many toys.

    The fear locally is that this same system is headed toward eastern Mississippi.

    According to John Baxter, severe weather meteorologist for the National Weather Service, the low pressure system that created these storms in Texas is expected to track toward Memphis, Tennessee and in the process lose a great deal of energy as it moves eastward.

    “We will get some rain, some isolated thunderstorms and maybe some sporadic straight line winds along with hail but we are not foreseeing a major weather event like that in Texas,” Baxter said. “The system moving through will be going far north of us and we should really just see the trailing edge of the front move through our area.”

    Baxter said the rain should arrive sometime tonight and into Thursday morning. He said for residents to expect heavy rain in some areas but for the most part, this system should pass through without much fanfare.

    The latest meteorological report from the National Weather Service in Jackson said the risk of damaging winds and hail will be the primary risk today as this system moves through but added a tornado or two spawning from super cells that may develop due to afternoon heating could not be ruled out entirely. For Thursday, strong to potentially severe storms could develop along and east of the Interstate 55 corridor. Meteorologists describe the Thursday storm activity as becoming quite vigorous.

    “The unstable atmosphere that was in the Dallas/Fort Worth area is what sparked those storms and we don’t see that same intense scenario occurring in our area,” Baxter said.