Arkansas Storm Team Weather Blog: Tornado/severe thunderstorm watch until 5 AM

by: Julianna Cullen, Alex Libby, Pat Walker

Posted: Feb 10, 2023 / 03:31 PM CST

Updated: Feb 16, 2023 / 08:45 AM CST

—– 2:25 AM Thursday Update ——

A series of tornado warnings have been issued early Thursday morning in parts of northern Arkansas.

One warning included parts of Marion & Baxter County. Another tornado warning covered parts of Searcy County. Both are set to run until 3 a.m.

A third covered parts of Searcy, Newton, Marion and Boone Counties until 2:30 a.m.

People in these areas should be in there safe places.

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It has been a very warm and sunny Wednesday. Little Rock reached a temperature of 77°, only 3° away from the old record of 80° from 2005. This heat and increased humidity are some of the ingredients needed for severe weather.

A strong storm system will be moving into Arkansas late Wednesday night and set off strong to severe thunderstorms.

The Storm Prediction Center has issued a tornado watch for most of eastern Arkansas until 5 am Thursday morning. Along with the tornado watch, there is also a severe thunderstorm watch for parts of western Arkansas.

Strong thunderstorms will begin to pop up as early as 9 pm Wednesday night over the eastern half of Arkansas. There will also be a more widespread line of thunderstorms during the very early hours of Thursday morning. The severe weather risk will be over by Thursday morning. Below is the latest timing.

Severe storms producing damaging wind of 58 mph and higher are possible. A few instances of hail are possible up to the side of a quarter. Isolated tornadoes will be possible over the eastern half of the state.

Rainfall amounts do not look excessively high. The heaviest rainfall totals look to be in Mississippi and Tennessee, however, portions of south and eastern Arkansas could see around an inch. There could be some localized flooding mainly in south and east Arkansas where rainfall totals will be over an inch.

It is important that you have a way to receive severe weather alerts. Since this round of severe weather will move through when most people are sleeping, it is important that you have your alerts on loud enough that they will wake you up.