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Since 1894, weather observations have been kept in Pocahontas, AR. The above image is from April of 1894, the first month of weather observations on file! For 122 years, we have had an account of the weather from various parts of Region 8 by people that volunteer their time to serve their community. One of those people is Don Waterworth of Pocahontas. Tomorrow, September 21st, Mr. Waterworth is going to get one of the most prestigious awards given by the National Weather Service (NOAA). It's the Holm Award, given for his efforts as a cooperative weather observer in Pocahontas for over 30 years! Prior to Mr. Waterworth serving as the cooperative weather observer for Pocahontas, the Benedictine Sisters kept up with the weather observations. In February of 1982, they recorded their last report: At the bottom of that report, they welcomed Don Waterworth to the cooperative program: In March of 1982, Mr. Waterworth recorded his first month of observations: I'd like to personally than...

I'm doing some research this morning and discovered some interesting tornado statistics: It has been 706 days since Craighead County has had a tornado warning. It has been 864 days since the city of Paragould had a tornado warning. 0 Tornadoes in Region 8 in 2015. 1 Tornado so far in Region 8 in 2016. (EF1 in Cross County)  To compare, we had 9 in 2012, 13 in 2013, and 13 in 2014. It takes time to research the "WHY", but my hypothesis would be a correlat ion to El  Niño . But, looking at the map above of 2015... it just looks like we were lucky! Regardless of why we are in a tornado drought, it makes me wonder if we will be caught off guard in a major severe weather outbreak.  Professionally, I need to make sure the staff knows how we handle major tornadoes in Region 8. Personally, I need to make sure my kids remember what to do in a tornado. While the weather is quiet, I hope you take the time to review your safety plans at home and work. We are in the middle of a global...

At 7:02 am, a magnitude 5.6 Earthquake shook a large part of the country. It was centered just NW of Pawnee, OK. If you have our app, you can turn on the earthquakes layer and see the position and information: I kind of felt it at my house, but was too tired at first to investigate further. I thought it was just the kids and their friends running around the house. With 4 kids and friends on most weekends... our house shakes a lot! LOL Immediately, my Twitter feed filled up with tweets from you guys and I knew it was something more than kids running around the house. I started checking in on what happened and found that Oklahoma had a rather large Earthquake for their area. I started checking the seismographs in Region 8 and easily could see it: Stay with KAIT and we will have some pictures and video of the damages in Oklahoma tonight on Region 8 News. Ryan