todd is there a chance the advisories may be extended to little rock or is it just going to be a cold rain like when the ice storm hit over north arkansas?

hey todd is little rock out of the woods as far as ice goes, notice conway is in the watch but not lil rock but what concerns me is conway only 30 miles from little rock

Well in looking at the models this evening...I see the GFS AND NAM both have temps in the 30s on Thursday and the NAM had rain/snow mix over North and Northeast AR. This looks to be winter's last gasp. I promised Tommy Smith a couple of "Cave Day's" and it looks like I can deliver.

Where are you Todd?

Todd and weather bloggers, I agree that that we will see a very, very, cold rain Thursday and Friday. It looks to be very miserable. Interesting note regarding this upcoming weather pattern. I would argue that we would see a cold rain if the system came in January. Northern Arkansas may have seen another ice storm, but here in Central Arkansas just cold rain. When we get a stalled cold front and overrunning moisture it is usually cold rain. We have to have an upper level low tract just to our south and east of Little Rock to get in on the big snow. Snow occurs 50 to 100 miles on the NW side of winter time upper level lows. Look what happened in NE Arkansas, the upper level low tracked just to SW and then east. The track was unusual, but they were in the right quadrant to see heavy snow. The upper levels just stay to warm over central and south Arkansas to support snow when we have a set up of moisture overrunning a stalled cold front.

Todd...

Don't forget April 3 1974....The Super Outbreak of tornadoes. The largest outbreak of tornadoes in our nations history. It was this event that got me interested in weather. I was living in San Jose California and we moved to Arkansas later that year. I could not wait!!!!!

Todd and bloggers, here is my story of April 3rd tornado outbreak. I was in Texarkana watching my boys play high school soccer. We were under a risk that day, but it looked like the heavy stuff was going to stay west. I took off for Texarkana anyway. My wife is a nurse and was on call so she stayed home with my younger daughter. By the time I got to Texarkana the supper cells started developing out ahead of the squall line and I knew things were going to get dangerous. I was tracking the storms from my cell phone and saw the supper cell form over Saline County with classic tornado signature. I called my wife and told her to take cover and to take the tornado threat very seriously. The soccer game was canceled at the half due to lightning and I headed back to Benton. I stayed on the phone with my wife while driving up I-30 and she said the Tornado Sirens were going off and she took cover in our basement. The tornado had already touched down at I-30 and Hwy 70 and did a lot of damage. The tornado then crossed over our neighborhood in the air. I live right off the saline river and the terrain is elevated. A few tree tops were knock out and a couple of roofs received some minor damage. Very close call for us. The tornado then touched down at Everets GMC. The dealership is about 4 miles NE as the crow flys from my house. Everyone should remember the dash cam video from the security guards car as the tornado came through the parking lot. From there the tornado crossed I-30 and hit the entrance to Hurricane Creek and the trailer park right off Hwy 5. The people in this neighborhood were very lucky because the tornado was jumping around and did not set on the ground and chew up everything in its path. Had the tornado stayed on the ground for a longer period of time it may have grown into a monster. That would have been very devastating and would have threatened lives.

My wife was bitten by a blackwidow spider while taking cover in the basement, so we spent the evening in the emergency room. The storms started training and we had heavy rain and vivid lightning for several hours after the tornado threat lifted. We could not get home from the hospital because Hwy 5 was under water. I had never seen Salt Creek flood all the way over Hwy 5. I almost drove into the flood waters because visibility was so poor. We had to wait until the flood waters receeded enough to take a short cut home. It will be a night I will never forget. One of my top five weather events for me personally.

Hey Todd or blogers i have been seeing snow on the 12th for a few days now do any of yall think it will pan out?

Hey Todd i was just wondering if any of the rain this week looks to be heavy?

Ninja,

I think I remember the morning show talking about you being in NC during all this. Isn't it weird what seems to happen when we travel? I've missed out on some major events as well when traveling, but nothing like we experienced last April. I'm glad that your wife and daughter made it out ok, that had to be horrific for them.

I think that it will be hard to repeat last spring, but I can't wait for this season to get started. I'm sure we'll get some moderate to maybe even high risk severe probabilities if these cold blasts continue. It's amazing how consistent these have been over the past couple of months.

My wife and I always have the camera rolling when storms are in the area, so we'll be on the lookout!

Weatherfanatic:

I remember that storm well. April 3rd. I was in North Carolina tracking it on radar and saw the tvs (tornado vortex signature) near Bryant and called my wife to warn her about the systems to the sw of Little Rock. As I tracked the storm systems additional rotation started to form in a cell just across the Ar River near Burns Park. I called her and asked her if the sirens had been activated, she said no at first and then yes. I told her to take cover as the track would take it near Sherwood. She got my daughter and went into the closet. She started screaming that the house was shaking and I could hear debris hitting the house and then the phone went dead. I could not get in touch with her for 20 minutes. I kept tracking the storm and then started receiving reports about Byrant, Cammack Village and now Sherwood. My neighborhood had been hit. I finally got a call from my wife and could hear sirens in the background. Our house had been hit along with several in the neighborhood. Thank God everyone took cover and no one was hurt. I flew back the next day and people are still to this day dealing with repairs. When I got back I got several phone calls and emails from people stating how ironic it was that I am a spotter/chaser and I was in NC and a storm went right through my neighborhood. No one got video of the Sherwood storm but if I had been here I would have. My daughter is ok now, but storms now make my wife nervous...

If you have Google Earth loaded on your computer, you can go the National Weather Service in NLR and see the exact tracks of any of the tornadoes of 2008. In my case, using the gps data..the storm went right over my house, my guess was the funnel was not all the way to the ground since houses higher in elevation to mine suffered more damage. The storm then was at ground level and went up and down several hills as it moved towards Gravel Ridge.

Todd,

I was just looking at your blog from last year and realized how crazy the weather was from February to April, most notably the Supercell that plowed over midtown LR. At the time, I lived about a mile to the west of the John Barrow-Markham intersection where the tornado just missed us to the east thankfully. It really was an odd tracking tornado, and did a lot of damage to some big trees and homes in the Leawood area as you know.

I remember being in my driveway hearing and seeing transformers blow up to my east. It was very quiet and eerie sounding while the damage was occurring less than a mile away. I'll never forget that calm sound. That is probably the closest I've ever been to a tornado. I'd love to chase with someone experienced someday.

I'm becoming a little concerned that we may have a dry spring. I read somewhere that we are in the waning stages of a weak La Nina until the late spring/summer time, and I'm thinking that we may not very many heavy soaking 2-3 inch rains. I hate it when everything blooms and we have a mini drought. Any thoughts on what the next 3 months will bring precip wise? With an active pattern developing, maybe we'll make up the rainfall deficit soon.

Todd...you called it correctly. I remember when I was on the phone with you last week in the snow you said you felt like we would see 80 by Friday. Way to go. What a difference a week makes let alone a year. Remember it was this week last year some parts of the state were deep in snow cover.

I see the coming cold and after the warm weather we have now..it's going to feel even colder.

Hey Todd looks like a nice week for weather geeks cant wait. so does it look like winter will be back?