Five Day Forecast Overview
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Severe Storm, Large Hail Possible Wednesday
This is the surface chart for this afternoon. Notice the low pressure and associated dryline tracking east. The strongest storms will be along and ahead
Lull for Tuesday
The front that caused all of the storms on Monday night is stretched across Arkansas. Since we’re on the northwest side of the front, we’ll
NWS Doppler Radar Link
Link for all Controlled Burns in Arkansas
OZ North Weather Overview
Northwest Arkansas is unique because of the ever changing terrain from the Boston Mountains near Fayetteville to the Springfield Plateau stretching from Rogers and Bentonville to the north.
Our elevation brings up a lot of wind year round, Fayetteville sit around 1,400ft above sea level and Bentonville around 1,200ft. Since temperature decrease about 5º with height, we’re typically much cooler than other Arkansas cities.
Because there’s no terrain to slow the movement of cold air, we typically have more snow and colder temperatures than the rest of the state. The snowiest month is January when we get around 2.3″ of snow on average. Annually, we typically receive around 7″ with the first flakes happening in October and the last in March.
Snows later in the season tend to be wetter and melt off the roads faster.
The worst travel conditions tend to be on I49 with the numerous high elevation bridges and overpasses. Winslow is the highest point on I49 with an elevation of nearly 1,900ft
Our Spring weather is usually extreme with frequent rounds of severe weather. Squall lines with damaging winds are the most common but supercells and tornadoes are also a frequent occurrence in the Spring months. April and May are the months with the most severe weather with the most violent storms typically occurring from 7pm to midnight.
Weather records are maintained at Drake Field in Fayetteville. Because Drake Field is in a valley, temperatures typically do not reflect all of NW Arkansas due to various terrain effects. XNA or NWA National Airport is more reflective of the weather conditions.
The National Weather Service in Tulsa, Oklahoma issues the Warnings & Watches for our area and coordinates with the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma for Severe Thunderstorm and Tornado Watches.
Historical weather information can be found here on the NWS Website. The image below reflects the all-time extreme for Fayetteville, Arkansas.
OZ South Weather Overview
The terrain of the Greater Fort Smith area along with the Arkansas River Valley play a large factor in the weather we typically experience. The River Valley is nestled between the Ouachita Mountains to the south and the Boston Mountains to the north.
The elevation of Fort Smith is 463ft above sea level. Because it’s sheltered to the north and the south, the wind typically isn’t as frequent as Northwest Arkansas. In fact, a drainage east wind typically develops due to the terrain leading to unusually colder temperature while the rest of the region experiences a warmer south wind.
The terrain of Northwest Arkansas typically slows the cold air moving in from the north. Computer model data usually does not pick up on the delay and over-forecasting of snow is common. Being around 1,000ft lower than Northwest Arkansas also leads to above a 5º temperature increase.
Like NWA, the snowiest month is January with 1.3″ on average. Unlike NWA, the annual snowfall is lower at an average of 2.9″.
The Spring season is typically very active with supercell storms forming off a dryline in Texas and Oklahoma and moving into Western Arkansas later in the evening. Typically, the worst hailstorms occur in April while May is typically the month with the most tornadoes. Storms that form in Oklahoma during the sunset hours will typically for a line of storms that causes widespread damaging wind during the Spring months.
Weather records in Fort Smith are maintained at the Fort Smith Regional Airport and date back to the 1800s.
Like Northwest Arkansas, the National Weather Service in Tulsa covers much of the River Valley. However, a few counties are covered by Little Rock’s NWA office. These are: Logan, Johnson and Scott County.
Due to the lower elevation terrain of the River Valley along with the lack of wind, Summer months tend to be extreme, humid and uncomfortable. Temperatures as high as 115º have been recorded with a frequent heat index into the triple digits during the Summer months.
Historical information for Fort Smith can be found here. NWS-Tulsa has compiled a list of weather extremes in Fort Smith which can be found below.
