Heavy rain brought flooding to the Black, White, and Cache Rivers at the end of January.
Every event with a place to put it. Tap one for its entry below.
Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.
The episode as NWS LZK wrote it up.
Heavy rain brought flooding to the Black, White, and Cache Rivers at the end of January.
The local office's own words before the first event, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.
NWS Little Rock, AR wrote its last area forecast discussion before the first event at Jan 26, 8:55 PM CST, 2 hours 8 minutes earlier.
Area Forecast Discussion...UPDATED National Weather Service Little Rock AR 855 PM CST Tue Jan 26 2021 .UPDATE... Have updated the forecast to increase snowfall amounts and expand the Winter Wx Adv further west. Latest near-term guidance keeps suggesting higher moisture available as the potent fast moving upper shortwave slides east over the state on Wed. This increased moisture is supported by precip already forming across NRN TX into SRN OK...as well as SHRA ongoing across SERN AR. As a result...do think we'll see a bit higher snowfall amounts. Have generally a dusting to 2 inches...with locally higher amounts possible along the MO/AR border...and over NERN sections of the CWA. Updated WSW coming soon... && .PREV DISCUSSION...(ISSUED 540 PM CST Tue Jan 26 2021) DISCUSSION... Updated to include the 00Z aviation discussion below... AVIATION... While most sites outside of the NRN terminals remain VFR early this evening...expect CIGs to decrease late tonight and for Wed morning as precip develops. Generally...the SRN terminals will see rainfall...with the NRN terminals seeing a brief wintry mix early Wed morning. The NRN terminals will then quickly switch to all snow through midday...then drier air will move into the state with precip ending. CIGs during much of Wed will remain MVFR or lower...but some improvements are possible late in the period. PREV DISCUSSION...(ISSUED 248 PM CST Tue Jan 26 2021) SHORT TERM...Tonight Through Thursday Current surface analysis shows a stalled frontal boundary over northern Mississippi to along the I-20 corridor of northwest Louisiana and eastern Texas, with several weaker boundaries north of that. Upper air analysis shows several lows, with one over the mid Mississippi Valley and one over the southern Rockies. The southernmost low will shift into the Plains tonight and Wednesday, with the attendant longwave trough pushing through the Mid South region. This will give at least northern and central Arkansas a shot at precipitation. With colder air moving in (subfreezing surface temps just northwest of AR, 500mb temps of -20-30 C), precip should mostly be snow over northern Arkansas. Temps over the central portions will be slower to fall, with precip mainly falling as a cold rain there. Let me put it this way, the window for any winter precip over central Arkansas will be very brief...by the time the column cools enough, the primary moisture will be moving out. At any rate, not expecting significant impacts with winter precip tonight/Wednesday. However, the heaviest snowfall (if you can call it that) will be over northeast Arkansas, with amounts around an inch (give or take). This will likely be enough to cause some minor travel impacts, and as such, we've gone with a Winter Weather Advisory for a six-county area. The aforementioned longwave trough will be shifting east of the area during the morning Wednesday, with any lingering precip coming to an end as drier air moves in on northwest flow aloft. High pressure will move into the region on Thursday. Temperatures will begin to moderate as winds begin to take on a more southerly component. LONG TERM...Thursday Night Through Monday To start off the long term period, a large upper level ridge will be in place over the central United States, moving east over the region on Friday keeping things dry and sunny. With high pressure moving into place at the surface, the day will start off below freezing across the state Friday morning, warming up into the mid to upper 50s under sunny skies by Friday afternoon. The primary feature pushing the upper level ridge east across the state is a strong shortwave trough moving east northeast from southern California towards Arkansas from Friday afternoon through Saturday morning. This strong shortwave trough will cause strong lee side cyclogenesis over the Texas and Oklahoma panhandle early Saturday morning bringing strong southerly flow from the Gulf coast across the state of Arkansas from Friday night through Saturday morning. With a cool and dry airmass in place over Arkansas ahead of this storm system, the onset of strong southerly flow represents a strong warm and humid air advection regime over the state. The warm and humid advection will result in scattered rain showers and isolated thunderstorms across western Arkansas early Saturday morning, spreading east across the state through lunchtime on Saturday. Strong large scale forcing for ascent in the form of strong differential positive vorticity advection will spread over the state Saturday mid-day, bringing the surface low pressure system from the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles east towards northeast Arkansas. As the upper trough approaches the state and spreads strong lift over the region, the trough is expected to become negatively tilted, resulting in differential temperature advection with warm air advection maintained in the lower atmosphere and cold air advection aloft. This will cause mid-level lapse rates to steepen over the state by early Saturday afternoon, resulting in some elevated convective potential energy over the state out ahead of a strong almost dryline like frontal boundary causing thunderstorm coverage and intensity to increase across the state from west to east Saturday afternoon. The GFS and ECMWF consistently indicate that the window for the return of low-level warm and humid air advection is too small to result in surface based updrafts/convection. As a result, the threat of tornadoes and damaging winds appears to be low at this time, however, steep mid level lapse rates could allow for some small to one inch hail falling from the stronger storms as they move across Arkansas Saturday early afternoon. The dryline like boundary will push east by Saturday evening, bringing much drier air across the state. By 06Z Sunday, warm air advection will continue aloft, with a wind shift from westerly winds to northwesterly winds Sunday morning. This appears to be the transition from a dryline type boundary to a cold frontal passage, maintaining dry air across the state, but with much cooler air moving across the area during the day on Sunday. With mostly clear skies Sunday night/Monday morning and colder air in place, low temperatures are expected to fall below freezing across the northwestern half of the state with temperatures just above freezing for the southeast half of the state. Monday through Wednesday... Upper level ridging will move over the central United States behind the weekend storm system keeping the forecast dry for the first half of the week. At the surface, northerly winds will continue to maintain some weak cold air advection across the state on Monday, and clear skies and light winds will allow temperatures to fall below freezing across much of the state Monday night/Tuesday morning. A return to southerly winds and sunny skies will result in temperatures climbing up into the upper 50s Tuesday afternoon. Southerly winds will increase in intensity on Wednesday as another upper level storm system approaches the state. At this time, the upper level storm system is expected to remain west of Arkansas on Wednesday, so an increase in clouds is expected, but maintained a dry forecast for now. && .LZK Watches/Warnings/Advisories... Winter Weather Advisory from midnight tonight to noon CST Wednesday FOR Baxter-Boone-Cleburne-Fulton-Independence-Izard- Lawrence-Marion-Newton-Randolph-Searcy-Sharp-Stone-Van Buren. && Aviation...62
Hazardous Weather Outlook...UPDATED National Weather Service Little Rock AR 859 PM CST Tue Jan 26 2021 ARZ003>008-012>017-021>025-030>034-037>047-052>057-062>069-271100- Boone-Marion-Baxter-Fulton-Sharp-Randolph-Newton-Searcy-Stone- Izard-Independence-Lawrence-Johnson-Pope-Van Buren-Cleburne- Jackson-Logan-Conway-Faulkner-White-Woodruff-Scott-Yell-Perry- Polk-Montgomery-Garland-Saline-Pulaski-Lonoke-Prairie-Monroe-Pike- Clark-Hot Spring-Grant-Jefferson-Arkansas-Dallas-Cleveland- Lincoln-Desha-Ouachita-Calhoun-Bradley-Drew- 859 PM CST Tue Jan 26 2021 This Hazardous Weather Outlook is for a Large Part of Arkansas. .DAY ONE...Tonight A wintry mix will develop late tonight across northwestern and northern sections of the area...eventually switching over to all snow by sunrise around Wednesday. Some light accumulations will be possible as a result...which could create some hazardous driving conditions in the northern portion of Arkansas. .DAYS TWO THROUGH SEVEN...Wednesday Through Monday A wintry mix will continue to spread east throughout the morning hours on Wednesday...with all snow expected across the northern 2 rows of counties. Snowfall accumulations from a dusting to around 2 inches are forecast...with locally higher amounts possible. The highest snowfall amounts look to be across the northern and northeastern portion of the area. This wintry weather may create some hazardous driving conditions on area roadways. Further south...mainly rainfall is expected. However...some sleet or snow may briefly mix with the rain over central sections of the area...or generally along and just north of the I-40 corridor. Impacts in this region of the state should remain limited to none due to temperatures remaining above freezing. Expect the snowfall to move east of the area by late Wednesday afternoon...with drier air expected to move into the area. However...some refreezing of any melted snow will be possible as temperatures drop below freezing Wednesday night. This may result in some patchy slick spots over the northern third of the area. Otherwise...the threat for hazardous weather beyond Wednesday night look low at this time. .Spotter Information Statement... Spotter activation will not be needed. && Visit NWS Little Rock on the web. Go to http://weather.gov/lzk.
The national radar mosaic for the moment the first event began.
3 flood. Local standard time, as filed.
Heavy rain brought flooding to the Black River at Black Rock at the end of January 2021.
Heavy rain brought flooding to the White River at Augusta at the end of January 2021.
Heavy rain brought flooding to the Cache River at Patterson at the end of January 2021.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
Every storm in Arkansas in 2021Every state in 2021This day in weather historyWarnings in Arkansas, January 2021
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-09-24. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 938313, 938314, 938315.