NWS Little Rock, AR - Text Viewer

ZCZC LITWRKPNS
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Public Information Statement
National Weather Service Little Rock AR
600 AM CST Sun Nov 26 2023

...Winter Weather Awareness Week in Arkansas...

November 27th through December 1st is Winter Weather Awareness 
Week in Arkansas. The purpose of this week is to remind people
what winter weather can bring, and how to deal with 
hazardous winter conditions. Now is the time to prepare 
for the upcoming winter season.

During each weekday, a different winter weather topic will be
covered in a Public Information Statement...

    Monday...The Outlook for the Coming Winter
    Tuesday...Winter Precipitation Types
    Wednesday...Winter Weather Watches, Warnings, and Advisories
    Thursday...Winter Weather Safety Rules
    Friday...The Cold of Winter

Climatological winter runs from December through February. 
The last five winters have featured mostly warmer and 
wetter than average conditions.

WINTER      AVG TEMP  DEPARTURE   PRECIPITATION   DEPARTURE

2018/2019     43.7      +2.4         20.03         +7.91 
2019/2020     44.7      +3.4         14.25         +2.13
2020/2021     39.6      -1.7         11.90         -0.22
2021/2022     44.8      +3.5         11.29         -0.83
2022/2023     46.1      +4.8         15.89         +3.77

While weather conditions varied somewhat, historic or extreme 
events were almost non-existent. There was one notable exception, 
and that was in February of 2021. During that month, an Arctic 
intrusion affected areas all the way to the Gulf Coast. In 
Arkansas, temperatures were twenty to more than thirty degrees
below normal from the 14th through the 18th. During this time
frame, two big storm systems unleashed more than twenty inches 
of snow in central and southern sections of the state. Last year, 
while not as historic, an Arctic plunge sent temperatures well 
below zero in parts of the Ozark Mountains by the morning of 
December 23rd.

Interestingly, the most recent huge episodes of snow, ice, and 
severe thunderstorms occurred when La Nina conditions were dominant, 
or when water temperatures near the equator in the Pacific Ocean 
were colder than normal.

Heading into this winter, water temperatures are much warmer, 
and this means El Nino will be in charge. With a strong El Nino
in place, there were heavy snow events in 2010 and 2016, and 
December tornado outbreaks in 1982 and 2002. During the 1982 
episode, there was also major flooding. A textbook El Nino
features a wetter than normal pattern across Arkansas in the 
cold months. Temperature trends are not as clear cut, but most 
strong El Ninos have yielded mostly mild readings going back
forty or so years into the early 1980s.

&&

Please visit our web site at https://www.weather.gov/lzk

$$

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