Spring To Go Severe Soon

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It's extremely rare not to have any severe weather the first week in April.  I went back to 2005 and found every year had severe weather during this time period.  This year could be an exception, but that won't last long.   Just looking at local storm reports issued by the National Weather Service office in North Little Rock, here's the breakdown since 2005.  These numbers reflect tornado, wind, and hail reports April 1-7

2005... 57 reports
2006... 60 reports
2007... 37 reports
2008... 18 reports
2009... 2 reports
2010... 5 reports
2011... 51 reports
2012... 10 reports
2013... NONE so far

If I could go back even further, I'm sure this streak is much longer.

April 3rd marks the 5 years since the Little Rock tornado that tore through Leawood, Cammack Village, and Sherwood.  I saw the power flashes the tornado produced as it tore through west Little Rock. I was on I-630 and called into the station while Ned was on the air.  Here's some of that coverage and pictures below.

Large tree in Leawood fell on this truck due to the EF1 tornado.

Yet another example of the damage in Leawood.  Many homes were damaged due to trees falling on them.

Now onto next week.  The specifics are yet to be sorted out, but it does look like a dynamic system will pull out of the western United States.  Ahead of it, warm and moist air will set the stage for very unsettled conditions.  I think this has the potential to not only produce severe weather, but very heavy rainfall and even flooding.

This is the strong area of low pressure aloft and the Euro shows it hanging back a bit late next Tuesday.  Ahead of it, there could be waves of rainfall as warm and moist air gets drawn northward.

The GFS isn't too far off showing the same thing.  Bottom line again, don't trust specifics, but when you see this feature in the upper levels in April, LOOK OUT!!!!!!