It’s a cold morning with a Freeze Warning in effect until 9 AM. But as a warm front comes through this morning, we will start having a fast warm up. It won’t get “warm” today, but it will warm up to near normal temperatures thanks to that warm front and a mostly sunny to partly cloudy sky. The clouds will increase around Noon behind that warm front.
Rain and thunderstorms will come in Thursday. They will move into Northwest Arkansas in the late morning hours and West Arkansas around Noon. These thunderstorms will move into Central Arkansas in the afternoon. Widespread rain is expected. I do not expect these storms to be severe.
A second round of storms will form in Oklahoma and North Texas Thursday afternoon. These storms will likely become severe with a risk of large hail and tornadoes while they are in Oklahoma and North Texas. As they approach Arkansas, they will congeal into a line of storms and the damaging wind threat will go up as the tornado and hail threat decreases.
In my honest opinion, I do not think severe weather is possible in Central and North Arkansas, but is in Southwest and far South Arkansas with the second round. Below is a map I generated for where I think severe weather is possible and likely. The second image when you click the arrow is the Storm Prediction Center’s forecast for severe weather for tomorrow. There is a difference. Based on the data I have seen, all in all I believe the severe weather threat is lower than what the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center is forecasting. We are still a day out, so the forecast can still change.
