Plenty of sunshine Thursday and Friday will sandwich a quick shot of scattered strong storms Thursday night. The sunshine will return this weekend with pleasant temperatures. Strong to severe storms still look likely early next week.
The warming trend continues Thursday: Sunshine returned to the ArkLaTex Wednesday and has brought much warmer temperatures. Most of the area began the day in the 40s. We have warmed well into the 70s Wednesday afternoon. We are in for another cool night Wednesday night as lows dip into the upper 40s to lower 50s. Daytime highs Thursday will be even warmer as more sunshine will combine with a breezy south wind to heat us up into the 70s and low 80s.
A stormy Thursday night? Futurecast shows that we will stay clear over the ArkLaTex Wednesday night and will likely see plenty of sunshine once again Thursday. A fast-moving and rather strong disturbance will develop to our northwest Thursday night and will likely produce some scattered thunderstorms. The big question is how long will it take for the storms to become severe. Most high-resolution models including Futurecast show the storms increasing as they move near or move past Shreveport and Texarkana. It is possible that they could fire sooner. Consequently, the Storm Prediction Center indicates that we will see a slight severe weather risk over most of our area. If we do see severe weather, some hail will be the biggest threat. The tornado risk looks extremely low.
A great weekend of weather: We will likely see clouds linger over much of the ArkLaTex Friday. These clouds will move out leading up to a pleasant weekend of weather. We will likely see plenty of sunshine this weekend with highs in the 70s and lows in the 40s.
Severe storms look promising early next week: Long-range models continue to indicate that we will see another strong disturbance move into the southwestern US late this weekend. This system will move east early next week and will bring a good chance of strong to severe thunderstorms. As of right now, it appears that our biggest severe weather threat will be sometime Monday night into Tuesday morning. SPC still indicates a slight risk at this time with all severe weather threats possible including a few tornadoes.
Heavy rain on the horizon? Rainfall totals from today and Thursday night should be somewhat limited with totals of less than ½” possible. It will be different early next week with the storms that are expected. As of right now, we have good agreement in the long-range models and ten-day rainfall totals of around two inches. Some models show that part of the ArkLaTex could receive more than 4” of rain. The rain threat will end during Tuesday or Tuesday night and the rest of next week should be dry and pleasant with highs in the 70s.
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