What's Next?
On the Arkansas Weather Blog, on air, and on a couple Facebook Live's with Meteorologist Barry Brandt, we expressed our skepticism on the severe weather potential Saturday. Not all the ingredients were quite there, but some were and we had to carefully watch for you as the strong front made it through Arkansas
Noted was the lack of instability, especially if rain and storms were present early in the day. That indeed was the case for much of the Channel 7 viewing area, except eastern Arkansas. Also, severe weather early in the day during February is difficult to develop, and if it does, it's usually very isolated. Also, Barry and I noticed the jet dynamics for severe weather did not come into play until after the area of rain/storms moved east with drier air in place.
Not a single severe weather report in the Channel 7 viewing area and I'm very happy about that! Flooding was the biggest concern along with non-thunderstorm winds. My electricity went out for about 30 minutes because of that Saturday afternoon.
We're about to enjoy a nice stretch of dry weather. When does the rain return? Probably Wednesday or into Thursday. Then we much watch what happens next weekend.
The models have been nothing short of horrible this winter predicting cold and the magnitude of cold air. They have been even worse predicting winter weather! All the long range global models have a very mild Friday, then temperatures TANK! Taken literally, it's going to get COLD. The first 7 days of February were the warmest on record by average high temperatures. Could the opposite occur the 1st 7 days of March? Taking the models literally, yes! HOWEVER, I go back to how horrible the models have been lately so I'm not willing to go that far at this time. If that does happen, it would be fitting for our weather, wouldn't it?!
