Severe Saturday

With many of you enjoying the great outdoors with friends and family this weekend, please have a way to receive warnings late Saturday into early Sunday.  A round of storms will be likely and some will be severe.

The amount of instability is categorized as "extreme".  There will be a lid on the atmosphere most of the day, but if a storm can develop, it will become severe rapidly.  The highest chance for development will be later in the afternoon and into the evening.


Many of these images are courtesy of eurowx.com
 

Most of the state has a risk for severe weather.  The northwest half of the state has an "enhanced" risk with a "slight" risk further south.  An upgrade to a moderate risk is possible in later outlooks.

With large amounts of instability, wind and hail will be the main severe weather threats.  The threat for tornadoes will also be possible, but it's low.  There will be so much moisture in the air, storms will produce heavy rain and localized flooding could become an issue.

From EuroWx.com.  CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy), is extreme for northern and western Arkansas.  This is like the gasoline that fuels your car.  CAPE is an index used to measure the fuel for the atmosphere.  With values above 4000, that's extreme!

This shows precip over the previous 6 hours ending at 7PM Saturday.  Most of what you see over northern Arkansas will initiate after 4PM.

From 7PM to 1AM, heavy amounts of rain are forecast from the Euro across northern and central AR.  This is suggesting a large storm cluster will move southward.  Along the leading edge, high winds will be likely.

Between 1AM and 7AM Sunday, the storms should weaken and move south.  However, some could still be severe.