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It's been "about" 24 years since kids were Trick or Treating in the snow in Region 8. Snowball fights on Halloween night in Arkansas may be weird, but that's what happened 24 years ago. When you hear about this night, it's always referred to as the time "it snowed on Halloween", but it was not ACTUALLY Halloween. You see, Halloween fell on a Sunday and many cities in Region 8 chose to trick or treat on the night before. So, the snowfall was actually on October 30th. The above image shows the strong upper-level low that had dipped south to help bring the snowfall. This is Saturday evening's 500mb map. I decided to dig up some old climate logs to see what was written about this snow event and this is what I found. Here is the Jonesboro log for October of 1993 from Terry Wood. Click image to enlarge: Notice, Terry logged that we had sleet and snow, with about a half inch of accumulation. Some places had more accumulation than others. Here is the histor...

Yes, the title of this blog sounds scary, but we are going to be sandwiched in-between the warmer air to the south and the colder air to the north. The battle will take place over Region 8 and that may lead to more winter storms. Last year's forecast played out well, but I hope I'm wrong this year. As many of you know, I'm not a big fan of winter. *SCROLL DOWN if you want to get straight to the outlook* We often hear about La Niña and El Niño when it comes to the winter forecasts. This year, we see some signs that a WEAK La Niña is forming. However, there is a chance that we don't have either La Niña or El Niño this winter. I'm thinking we have more of a "cool neutral" where we aren't really in a La Niña or an El Niño pattern. If you recall from previous forecasts, this is determined on if we have warmer or cooler than average water off of the coast of South America at the equator. Here are the current seas surface anomalies: Taken what we have seen in...

Good Friday evening, everyone! We have a strong cold front coming in Sunday morning and storms are likely. While we may see some of the most substantial rainfall we have seen in awhile, the threat for severe weather appears to be LOW. Here are the bullet points on this storm as of now, Friday 5:00 PM: Best chance of rain is Sunday. 1-2" of rainfall is possible. Could be the most rainfall for Jonesboro in 50 days! Severe threat is LOW. Storms may impact the Arkansas/Auburn game LATE, but more likely after the game. Let's dig into a little bit of data. First, the data has been flip-flopping on the strength and timing of this front. At this time, it appears that a squall line will enter the NW part of Arkansas LATE on Saturday. However, we may have a few showers and storm BEFORE the line of storms.This is how radar may look at 7:00 PM on Saturday: I believe the Razorback game will be dry at the start, if we can avoid the isolated showers prior to the squall line. We will have to ...

It's Saturday morning and Hurricane Nate is going to make landfall in less than 24 hours. It looks like Nate may make two landfalls. The first will be in SE Louisiana around midnight. The second will be Sunday morning on the Mississippi coast. Of course, the track may shift, too. Here's what the first landfall may look like on radar around midnight: Notice in the above image that the heaviest rain will not extend too far from the center of the hurricane. This hurricane is not really large and will be moving fast. Excessive rainfall should not be an issue. Second landfall will come right before sunrise and radar could look like this: At this time, I would not be surprised to see some tornado warnings near Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, and Pensacola. The center is where the strongest winds will be located. These next two images show the projected winds at both possible landfalls. Remember, this is in KNOTS: As you can see, the hurricane force winds will not extend too far from the c...