Arkansas Storm Team Blog: Tornado Watch until 10 p.m.

WEDNESDAY – Four rounds of potentially severe storms will pass through Arkansas today, tonight, and early Friday morning. A tornado watch is in effect until 10 PM for central and southern Arkansas.

From 3:00 – 4:00 this afternoon a couple severe storms (damaging wind, hail and tornado risk) will move into west or southwest Arkansas. Those storms will then move into Central AR 5:00 – 6:00 p.m. After that, we’ll likely continue to have severe storms in South Arkansas through 11:00 p.m. The is round number 1.

The flooding threat is not expected to be a major issue today. But once Thursday’s heavy rain piles up on top of what falls today, it will become an issue.

THURSDAY – As Arkansas Storm Team Meteorologists expected, the Storm Prediction Center has increased the probability of severe weather in their forecast for tomorrow and tomorrow night. It is now “Moderate” in South Arkansas.

After storms die down Wednesday night, some showers will linger after Midnight in South Arkansas. These showers will intensify into thunderstorms and potentially severe storms with a tornado and damaging wind threat. These storms will develop and move through South Arkansas from about 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. along and south of a frontal boundary. There will be a tornado and damaging wind threat with these. This is round number 2.

Then, around 2:00 p.m. round number 3 will form in Southwest Arkansas and move northeast into Central Arkansas. These storms will have the highest probability of tornadoes with significant (EF-2 or greater) possible. Damaging wind gusts (80+ mph. and large hail (up to baseball size) will also be possible with these storms.

A fourth and final round should move into West AR by 10:00 p.m. It will sweep through the state from 10:00 p.m. to about 2:00/3:00/4:00 a.m., Friday. This last round will have a damaging wind and tornado threat as well as the heightened flooding threat which will be building over the couple of days after repeated rounds of rain.