For the last few months, rain has been hard to come by in Arkansas. Little Rock only recorded 0.46″ of rainfall in September, making it the 9th driest since records began. We needed rain, and we got a lot of it on Wednesday and Thursday.

The latest drought monitor shows how beneficial this rain was. A large portion of central Arkansas is under severe drought. This rain should put a small dent in the drought. In order to completely get rid of the drought we will need several more rain events like what we saw Wednesday and Thursday.

The rain is great, but some locations in southwest Arkansas got a little too much rain…

Texarkana smashed its daily rainfall record Wednesday. The old record of 2.82″ was nearly tripled with 7.49″ of rain recorded at Texarkana Regional Airport! Wednesday was Texarkana’s 4th wettest day on record! The two-day rain total in Texarkana was over 8″!

Texarkana definitely hit the rainfall jackpot, but we also saw some very impressive two-day rain totals in other parts of the state! Many locations picked up 1-2″ over the two-day period.

Radar indicated rainfall is even more impressive! For Wednesday and Thursday combined, the radar shows a large area where more than a foot of rain fell. All the locations that are grey are where radar is indicating more than a foot of rain!

This led to localized flooding in parts of southwest Arkansas, northwest Louisiana, and northeast Texas.

The forecast for the next week is pretty dry. It looks like rain will be few and far between over the next 7 to 10 days.