POTEAU STORM PICTURE!

Check out this photo that a weather tracker in the Poteau area sent in of a late-day thunderstorm. We received several calls about how ominous the sky was looking in the area around the 5:30 to 7:00 PM time frame. On radar the storm blossomed over the area just south of the Sugarloaf Mountains. The terrain might have very well helped initiate the convection. The storm never met severe criteria although there were likely some strong winds along the leading edge and our Superdoppler radar was picking up on a little small hail.

With our winds out of the SE, storm movement throughout the day was to the NW. This is somewhat anomalous to the general motion of storms in our area, which is to the NE. Winds around a Low in the northern hemisphere move in a counter clockwise fashion and with the Low parked to our southwest over the past few days, we’ve been seeing this type of storm track. Another factor in this somewhat strange motion is due to the fact that our winds aloft are light. So, the motion of the Low has been showing up well as showers and storms have developed, greatly aided by daytime heating.

We’re likely to see somewhat of a repeat performance of rain activity tomorrow afternoon, though like today it will be very hit or miss. One weather tracker in the Paris region reported a half inch of rain out of just one storm and another reported over and inch and a quarter from down in the Mena area. You may feel a bit more lucky if you live south of I-40, that’s where the best chance of getting wet will be.

Posted by Ted Zarras at 11:25 PM