Arkansas Storm Team Forecast: Severe risk increases into Wednesday night

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON: Temperatures continue to climb into the afternoon with a bit more sunshine. This, plus a moist southerly flow, will fuel the potential for strong to severe storms later in the night. Highs will reach the mid-70s by mid-afternoon.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT & OVERNIGHT: Shortly after sunset, scattered thunderstorms begin to develop. Most of these will be over eastern Arkansas, though there will be a few to keep an eye on across northwest Arkansas as well.

Those storms in eastern Arkansas will be most likely to produce tornadoes and large hail late in the evening and early overnight. But around midnight or shortly after, these storms will move east while another batch of storms in western Arkansas move through.

At the same time, we will be tracking storms across western Arkansas as well. These storms would be less likely to produce a tornado, but more likely to produce damaging wind. Regardless, we’ll be monitoring these beyond midnight.

With this being an overnight risk, even a low severe risk can be more dangerous because people are not weather-aware while sleeping. That said, please ensure you have a way of getting warnings. This method should be capable of waking you up if you need to seek shelter. The Arkansas Storm Team app is a great tool for this. Click here to download.

THURSDAY: A few showers could linger over eastern and southeast Arkansas early in the morning. But by mid-morning, we will be much drier with a strong northwest wind.

This northwest wind will keep temperatures falling throughout the day behind the overnight front. Temperatures slip into the mid and upper 50s by mid-morning Thursday. They’ll continue to fall into the afternoon, likely into the lower 50s at times.

FRIDAY & BEYOND: We’ll clear out some more into Friday morning as temperatures plunge below freezing. We’ll start the day in the upper 20s. Then expect sunshine with highs near 50. Temperatures gradually warm up through the weekend before returning to low 70s with rain chances early next week.