After the wild weekend of severe weather, we are glad to announce that this week looks fairly quiet regarding any severe weather. In fact, there isn't much rain in the forecast. With a ridge of high pressure in place the severe weather/snow storms will be pushed off well to our north. A large trough of cold air will dig into the central portion of the country early this week. This will give way to very cold, and non-Spring like temperatures for us early Monday morning. The next severe weather threat looks to take place next weekend. This is still long range and there is a ton of model disagreement, which is to be expected being this far out. As of right now, it does not appear to be anything like this most recent event.
Thanks to an area of high pressure we will remain mostly dry this week. With a few chances of very light rain showers around Thursday. With this in place cloud cover will be somewhat limited, giving us beautiful weather for the most part.
A large trough of very cold arctic air will dig south, this will lead to VERY chilly temperatures Monday morning (4-16-18). Notice in the graphic above the arrow pointing out the red and blues lines. This is indicative of the freezing line, this line moves well into Arkansas, giving way to below freezing, or just above freezing temperatures for most of us. Check out the strong area of low pressure in the northeast part of the country (red L near Pennsylvania). This is the same area of low pressure that has brought all the snow to the north, and severe weather across the south we just experienced.
If you thought this morning was cold, just wait until tomorrow morning. It is going to be absolutely frigid in northern Arkansas, with temperatures in the 20's. We've taken the model data from the NAM 3-km and implemented them in the graphic above. They may be a little overestimated, but regardless this is very cold air for mid-April.
The real issue for tomorrow morning is the wind chill. The air temperatures will be cold enough, adding in strong gusty winds will make this even worse. Some of northern Arkansas could experience wind chill readings in the mid teen's. This will make the Monday morning commute very chilly, bundle up!
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| Our next severe weather event looks likely next weekend |
Looking into the long range, or voodoo country as it is coined in the meteorological field, things begin to get interesting again. Next weekend it appears a warm front will lift northwards into Arkansas on Saturday. However, a cold front will crash the party as it moves east. With some unstable air present (graphic posted above) this could spark a few storms, some possibly stronger.
It is far too early for any sort of specifics, but it is Spring and worth mentioning. This could always fizzle out and we could just see a few thunderstorms. Parameters don't look off the charts regarding this and we do NOT expect it to be anything like our most recent severe weather event. We'll keep an eye on it though.
-AW Team
Model use accredited to: http://models.weatherbell.com/
