Soggy state ushers in 2021

Ice, snow possible in Ozarks region

Arkansas will start 2021 in a soggy state.

A storm front that moved into the state Tuesday will make its way out of Arkansas today, after soaking Northwest Arkansas and the River Valley.

The National Weather Service in Tulsa issued a hazardous weather outlook that said ice could be a problem Thursday night in some higher terrain of the Ozark Mountains. Ice accumulations were expected to be less than a quarter of an inch.

A Weather Service briefing Thursday said “the most impactful winter weather” would be confined to Madison and Carroll counties, but other parts of Northwest Arkansas could have some icing on roadways.

“Another disturbance will brush northern Arkansas on Saturday, bringing with it a chance of snow in the Ozarks,” according to the National Weather Service in North Little Rock. “Some minor accumulation is possible with amounts up to a couple tenths of an inch in the higher terrain. Little to no impacts are expected.”

Fayetteville has a 50% chance of rain before noon today, but any new precipitation would amount to less than a tenth of an inch, according to the Weather Service. Otherwise, the forecast is for cloudy skies and a high near 44 degrees. Tonight’s low will be around 30 degrees, with a high of 38 on Saturday and a 20% chance of snow.

Some parts of southwest Arkansas got 6 inches of rainfall, said Tabitha Clarke, a meteorologist with the Weather Service in North Little Rock.

While that rainfall took place over several days, Clarke said it was southeast Arkansas that got the biggest deluge over a 24-hour period.

Rohwer in Desha County got 4.26 inches over a 24- hour period ending Thursday, she said. Lincoln County got 3.36 inches, and Monticello got 3.5. She said southeast Arkansas could get another one- half to 1 inches of rain Thursday night.

A second system was pushing the storm out of the state on Thursday, but that system could soak southwest Arkansas with another 2 inches of rain on the way, said Clarke.

A flash flood watch was expanded Thursday to include all of southern and central Arkansas.

Minor river flooding will likely impact the Ouachita, lower White, Cache, and lower Black river basins through early next week, according to the National Weather Service.

The forecast for today in Little Rock is mostly cloudy with a high of 45 degrees. The low tonight is expected to be 38 degrees, followed by a high of 45 on Saturday. No precipitation is in the forecast.

By Monday, high temperatures in Fayetteville and Little Rock will be in the upper 50s, according to the Weather Service.

The storm system that drenched Arkansas dumped a foot of snow in west Texas while spawning tornadoes across the Lone Star State.

“A very active and stormy weather pattern will be in place across large portions of the nation as we wrap up the last several hours of 2020 and then surge into 2021,” the National Weather Service said Thursday afternoon. “A strong storm system currently situated across the southern Plains and lower Mississippi Valley region will be driving numerous weather-related hazards over the next couple of days and into the weekend as the storm system lifts northeast through the eastern U.S.”