More Rain Now, The Less of This Later

You must be careful of what you ask for around here in Arkansas. You want rain? Mother Nature has a habit of over delivering. Many wanted snow last winter, then we had almost 2 feet within 3 days.

It's simple. The more rain we have right now, the less likely we'll have early summer extreme heat. Why? While it could become very humid, the sun's energy will go into evaporation first. Once the ground is dry, the sun is very efficient with cranking up the air temperature.

The other night I looked at Little Rock rainfall so far this year. At the time, it was more than 3 inches below average. Looking at other spots around the state! We are average to above average. Not too dry and not too wet!

It's very interesting the North Little Rock airport, only a few short miles away, has had almost 3 more inches of rainfall than Little Rock Adams. West Little Rock, even more rainfall this year.

60 day precipitation anomaly in inches below. Look at the tiny little dry dot over central Pulaski county! Most of the state has seen average to above average rainfall so far this year. Using Little Rock as a rainfall barometer (see what I did there), probably isn't a good idea at this time.

Where do we go from here? Well, we know why this is called "May". It may feel like winter, it may feel like spring, and it may feel like summer. Next week will feel like spring!

Warm, humid air will advance into the state with a stalled boundary to the north. In the upper atmosphere, disturbances will kick off multiple rounds of rain and storms. Daytime heat will also help develop these areas of rain.

Very important! It will likely NOT rain all day and all night. There will be several rounds of rain. The area most favored for the heaviest rainfall will be the western 1/2 of Arkansas over the course of several days.

European rainfall anomalies over the next 2 weeks. The Gulf moisture seems to be directed over Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. While it's wet in Arkansas, the rainfall amounts seem to fade going east.

The rainfall forecast through early Thursday, May 20th. Most of this falls next Monday through Wednesday. Flooding? There could be isolated instances, especially west.