Arkansas Storms pending today into tonight

A little bit of a heads up.

If you are coming this way towards Little Rock today or tonight you can expect tornados, hail and wind among other things. Just remember when you hear this single note siren that means spotters, local law enforcement or county leaders have a tornado in YOUR area and coming on. The best thing to do is get out of that truck and get into a strong building.

There is more information coming in as I write this and at some point shortly things will get started when the sun has had time to break the Cap layer at about 20000 feet above us and light things up. The dryline is OKC-Shamrock-Grissom TX-Elpaso at the moment. It will start moving east shortly. That is when the party is getting started.

First of two links is the Storm Prediction Center out of Norman Oklahoma. They do these things in Real time and all forecasters take information from there.

NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center

Second is the local Little Rock NOAA office at the airport. They always update every 5 minutes with radar and faster than that with automatic storm alerts from spotters or LEO that have eyes on a tornado in particular.

Little Rock, AR

It's going to be noisy, it's going to be wet. That does not bother anyone here. But when that Federal Siren is fired up and it takes off, it's time to find a hole. Underground if possible. Many school districts have FEMA Bunkers capable of holding about a thousand souls or so more or less that probably will be opened tonight provided it is not school hours. Kids get first call on those. Otherwise the local police opens it and anyone is welcome.

If you are going to come through US67 to and from Little Rock, Don't. Halt somewhere away and wait until the morning if you can. Half of the highway here is under construction and if the rain is fat enough fast enough there are three locations that does flood the highway plus tornados like to travel down two valleys to there between ridges and get real big. You will never see it coming because US67 is mainly treelined at both sides of the pavement.

If you think, that coming in on Monday sometime, you can expect some freezing ice. Winter isnt quite finished with us just yet.

 

Particularly Dangerous Situation Watch has gone up. This time for long track strong tornados that probably will take a walk here and there tonight. As of 8 minutes ago.

Storm Prediction Center PDS Tornado Watch 40

This is a standard tornado watch for extreme SE Kansas Eastern Oklahoma and Texas. 45 minutes ago

Storm Prediction Center Tornado Watch 39

I'll be online as much as I can tonight, but at a certain point I will be in a hole somewhere for a while.

 

You have active fires not far from you. If at all possible have a pathway out ELD be ######.

Oklahoma I-40 first up with tornado warning a short time ago. The weather just flipped in Little Rock and setting up already. That main line is east of I-35 and marching east.

Shreveport went ahead and stacked a second PDS tornado watch above ours in Louisiana. But it's Texarkarna and Hot Springs that are the historical pathways of tornados here in Arkansas.

The dry line has begun to move. This is going to be a bad night or a good night depending on your frame of mind. ha.

 

That is the surface wind feeding tonight. It's really bad today. Im on bottom land, glad I aint up say by Heber or somesuch.

The Fort Smith has a severe warning on it now. Little Rock to roughly Forest City on 40 is firing good. Those are just babies compared to what I expect coming.

There is some time yet. The main show is later on tonight.

 

Now Fort Smith has a tornado and a stack of other problems on it. They are first up.

What is awesome is this isnt the main line. That's still coming on Tulsa and south towards the line still.

National Weather Service

This includes the following highways,
Interstate 40 in Arkansas between mile markers 0 and 21.
Interstate 40 in Oklahoma between mile markers 322 and 328.
Interstate 540 between mile markers 1 and 13.
Interstate 49 between mile markers 22 and 40.

Do not expect me to keep up. If you are here in Arkansas. Find yourself a good bar and enjoy the show. I'll have to shut this thing down after a certain point in a couple of hours.

If you are on mobile phone with Google here in the rock and need instant or near instant info just type LZK into the search bar, it should take you straight to the NOAA weather center here downtown.

THV channel 11 is one of our finest bad storm trackers anywhere on TV in this area. Others do pretty good but not that good.

AM and FM radio should usually have a channel around the 91 or so FM dial that does nothing but follow spotters and skywarn ham in real time telling people where the actual tornados are now.

 

Ok.

Live Storm Chasing Map. Arkansas and other states have a number of chasers live with video in real time.

Live Storm Chasing Online

At the moment Michael Mickimmions is sitting in the way of the ongoing Van Buren Tornado

 

Mountainburg on the old crooked just got hit, closest to it would be Chester on I-49 nW of it 4 miles or so. That thing is rolling NE and will be in Missouri across the Buffalo River Park before too long skipping ridges.