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10 AM Wednesday Update... The Polk county NOAA weather radio is operational again.
8PM Sunday Update... Last week I mentioned something new coming to KATV weather. It's something that involves you and your help. I should have more details later this week.
2 PM Sunday Update... Another hail picture. This one is from Vickie Bowen in Crossett.
10:30 AM Sunday Update... Here's a picture from Emily Stover in Banks, Arkansas. Looks like the kids are looking for hail stones instead of Easter eggs.
9:30 AM Sunday Update... Here's a picture of hail from Bess Porter this morning at Blacksnake road and Mt. Pine Rd in Hot Springs. Please keep pics. coming to photo@katv.com
8 AM Sunday Update... Hope everyone is enjoying the day with family. The storms moving into the state will have the potential to produce some hail and gusty winds. Please stay safe, but if you have any hail, send pictures to photo@katv.com
There will be the potential for some heavy rainfall. It was nice to see the rain stayed away from central Arkansas early this morning, but that wasn't the case for western areas of the state. I'll keep everyone updated if anything changes.
8:30 PM Saturday Update... The tornado that hit Sevier county (DeQueen) into Howard county has now received a rating of EF3 with winds around 140 mph. According to the National Weather Service office in Shreveport, 7 were injured near Dierks. The storm path was 30 miles long and its width was .5 miles. It started near Eagletown, Oklahoma and ended 3 miles north of Dierks.
4:30 PM Saturday Update... I just got off the phone with the National Weather Service and their survey of the Mena tornado is finished. The path was 14.5 miles long starting .7 miles S-SE of Potter ending 3.2 miles NE of Ink. At one time the tornado was .6 of a mile wide. They are now on their way to survey another tornado right on the state line with Oklahoma. This was produced by the first storm that rolled through Polk county Thursday evening.
Below is an image of radar velocities. The radar is located near Fort Smith. The reds indicate air moving away from the radar and green is towards the radar. Where they come together indicates the location of the tornado which is on the north side of Mena.
7 AM Saturday Update... Devin uploaded a pic and it's on the You News TV section of the website. I will also show it on Saturday Daybreak....Thanks!
8 PM Friday Update... Devin, you can send pics to photo@katv.com.
From everything I can assess this afternoon, there have been 6 confirmed tornadoes across Arkansas. 2 in southern Miller county. 2 in Polk county (including the big one in Mena), 1 in Sevier county, and one in Ashley county. The Sevier county tornado has a preliminary rating of EF1. The Ashley county tornado was EF2.
1 PM Friday Update... The National Weather Service tells me they have seen EF3 damage so far in Mena. They are still in the process of looking at the damage so this is subject to change.
9 AM Friday Update...Here's a picture from Steve Watson on Rich Mountain near Mena. Unbelievable. I will have to go back and make sure, but I think it was the second storm that did all the damage in Mena.
9 AM Friday Update... Let's keep all of those in Mena in our thoughts and prayers as they recover from the twister that hit last night. I just opened my e-mail and see there are many, many pictures of hail from all of you. I will go through and post some soon.
7:30 PM Update Thursday... Strong circulation moving just north of Mena
Before I get to the severe weather chances late Thursday, I wanted to talk about the big snow of January 1988 many brought up in the previous blog posting. I dug through a couple of big boxes of pictures and this is what I found. You can see the driveway I shoveled in the first picture and the big mounds of snow on the side. It's 1988 and you can tell by the cars out there. The second picture is looking up my street.
The third picture is just something I stumbled on from my two years in Missoula, Montana. It's the view I woke up to everyday. Beautiful isn't it? Look at the bottom of the picture. It was taken on March 14th, 1997. That winter, Missoula had a record breaking 111 inches of snow and I enjoyed every flake of it! I remember it snowed well into May that year with major flooding following due to the snow melt. It was a shock to a guy from Arkansas. I would drive to work in heavy snow with deer running in front of me. It just became a part of living in the tundra I guess.
Now our chance for severe weather is there late today into tonight. All the ingredients are there for severe thunderstorms except deep moisture. SPC has issued a moderate risk which is really no surprise. I expect a narrow time frame late today for the development of severe thunderstorms and a risk for a tornado or two across eastern Oklahoma into western Arkansas. After that, I anticipate a the main threat to shift to hail and wind. I will continue to monitor the situation all day. Don't forget we twitter in the weather center. The address is twitter.com/katv_weather.
I picked up just under 3 inches here in WLR! 2.85 to be exact! Very nice that we got a good soaking, especially for the ground to absorb all of it.
Ninja,
If you guys end up chasing, look me up will ya? I've never been and would love to experience it first hand. I'm sure we'll have more opportunities in the next 2 months.If it can't workout, then I understand. Do you ever chase in Oklahoma or Kansas? That would seem to be ideal when the dry line becomes more active later this month and into May.
Thanks and Happy Easter to all!
I was living In chattanooga Tn at the time and we got 7- 11 inches In 1988 . The 1988 snow was the Big boy
But In 1993 they got 20 inches all time record for them .
Around here snow chances are the same but they track of the storm means all or nothing with amounts .
Here is that same storm over northern Georgia and the deep south of 1988 picture...
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/hun/events/Jan1988snow/1988Snow_2.jpg
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/hun/events/Jan1988snow/010788surface.jpg
I have not seen a lot of pictures except for those on the NWS web site and local media but it looks like many of the houses had siding and were not brick. I would like to see some more pictures to determine if brick homes would have made a difference in the damage totals.
The Fujita scale and the Enhanced Fujita scale are located on the NWS-Little Rock website : http://www.srh.noaa.gov/lzk/html/efscale.htm You can see the differences in the old and new scales. This tornado would have been rated between F2-F3 on the old scale. On that scale and F4 would have had winds in excess of 200mph. The Sherwood tornado last year was an EF2 (on the high end) and even brick homes suffered extensive damage.
It could have been much worse. I was out in 4 counties but did not see any tornadoes. I only encounterd hail a little less than a quarter size and winds of 39mph. They kind of feel apart as I was moving from one to another. It was fun though.
Take a look at this video from the Murfreesboro TN tornado. Pretty impressive although the guy doing the filming should have taken cover.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnSHkgT-uKU
Great coverage by the way Todd & channel 7 on Thursdays storms
Happy Easter everyone. I hope the Easter Bunny brings me some new radar software!!!
Ninja
For you weather nerds out there that would like to understand what conditions came together to produce this strom go check out this link from the NWS. The radar return is classic and you can see very clearly the winds moving toward and away from the radar as it moved right through down town Mena. I am not an expert on reading radar returns, but I think you can see debrie reflecting on the radar return. Maybe Todd can confirm this.
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/lzk/html/svr0409b.htm
They give an excellent break down of the all the conditions that came together to produce this torado. It could have been worse and I agree with Devin that some of the damage looked like EF-4 damage. Keep in mind Devin, the rating system changed a few years ago. This tormado most likley would have been rated an F-4 under the old rating system. Now they take into account the construction quality of the buildings and homes that were damaged. I did hear that some of the homes that were sweeped of their foundations were of brick construction. I think the NWS determines the power of the tornado based on the average damage it sees. These types of tornados do cycle while on the ground and intensity can go up and down. So some of the damge could have been EF-4 damage. Great observation! You are developing your weather skills! You could be the next weatherNija..!!!
I hope everyone has a Happy Easter and remembers where our blessings come from.
Thanks a lot, Kaleb
Devin, good call on the rain keeping severe weather chances down today. I don't see any rain falling in Little Rock, but radar return is showing rain. Looks like we are seeing some verga. I am sure the atmosphere will moisten up and the rain will fall. The lack of deep moisture is also slowing the development of severe weather for Central Arkansas. Todd pointed this out in his post. Keep an eye out for us and let us know if any storms develope in SW Arkansas. If they form down there they love to come up the interstate and hit Benton.
Everybody stay safe this afternoon and into tonight with all of the severe weather. This is my first time posting on the weather blog section, but I have been reading for a while now! Keep up the good stuff!
I'm from Lawton, OK, where we get tornados all the time in that area, so severe weather has always intrigued me, even as a little kid. I really enjoy reading your posts and all of the comments from others on here! It makes for a fun day in an otherwise boring work day. Haha :P
www.myspace.com/joshgreenonline
twitter.com/joshgreenonline
October
