187
FXUS64 KLZK 080548
AFDLZK

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Little Rock AR
1248 AM CDT Tue Jul 8 2025

...New AVIATION...

.KEY MESSAGES...
Issued at 143 PM CDT Mon Jul 7 2025

+ For this work week each afternoon will feature the potential for
showers and thunderstorms, primarily driven by the heat of the day
each day. Showers and storms are expected to have their highest
coverage each afternoon/evening through Monday, with lower
coverage expected late this week into next weekend.

+ Temperatures will remain quite warm this week, but the chance of
afternoon showers and storms each day will prevent the heat from
building up into dangerous territory. It`s still early July in
Arkansas, it`ll still be hot and humid, but at levels that are
common in the summer instead of well above normal.

+ While severe weather and flooding aren`t expected to be
widespread concerns, the types of storms we`ll see this week will
be very tall and very slow moving. Very tall storms are prone to
collapse dragging strong to damaging winds down towards the ground
with little notice (microbursts) and slow moving tall storms are
notorious heavy rainfall producers, so localized flash flooding is
also possible. While neither threat is expected to become common
or frequent, we will have to watch for the potential for both
throughout the week.

Cavanaugh

&&

.DISCUSSION...
Issued at 143 PM CDT Mon Jul 7 2025

Early afternoon water vapor satellite imagery shows a Tropical
Upper Tropospheric Trough (TUTT) centered over the Louisiana Gulf
coast and weak upper level ridging split on either side of the
TUTT with high pressure type circulations noted off the Carolina
coast and over the four corners region of the southwest United
States. To the north, a weak trough was noted over the central
Great Plains, moving east on track to move just north of the
Arkansas/Missouri border. Across Arkansas, surface observations
across the state showed temperatures in the lower to mid 90s under
partly cloudy skies and fairly humid conditions in place with dew
point values in the lower 70s for most locations. Regional radar
and satellite data showed scattered showers and thunderstorms
across most of the state with hit and miss activity most prevalent
over the eastern two thirds of the state.

Through tonight, expect most of the scattered showers and storms
that are on radar right now to dissipate around or shortly after
sunset. The ongoing thunderstorm activity is primarily driven by
rising currents of air forced by the peak heating hours of the
day, those currents of rising air will shut off quickly after
sunset. After sunset however, our high resolution models are
suggesting that an additional cluster of showers and storms will
develop over the northwestern quarter of the state. This is
probably due to the weak forcing for ascent tied to the subtle
shortwave trough over the Kansas/Oklahoma border. The ensemble of
short range model guidance places a 40 to 50 percent chance of
this second round of slightly more organized showers and storms
this evening. If it pans out, would expect that storms will tend
to be on the tall and slow moving side, pointing to localized
flooding as the primary potential impact.

On Tuesday Arkansas is expected to remain in between ridges to the
west and east and troughs to the north and south in a region
referred to on topological maps as a saddle, or in meteorology as
a deformation zone. In this zone, the flow aloft is very weak
featuring steering winds aloft ranging from 5-15 mph. Despite the
weak nature of the flow, the problem for Arkansas is that the weak
flow from every direction slowly converges on Arkansas. That
convergence will favor a greater number of showers and storms,
especially during and after the peak heating hours of the day.
Instead of the 30-40 percent coverage that we are seeing today
across the state, we could be looking more at 40-50 percent
coverage across the state tomorrow throughout the day. With the
winds aloft so very weak, it becomes almost impossible to pinpoint
exactly where the most showers and storms will develop and
persist, but the overall impacts are expected to be similar to
today`s activity... just more of it.

For tomorrows` showers and storms there will be plenty of
moisture, a sufficient amount of heat, and persistent albeit very
weak lift with almost no wind shear to work with. Collapsing
storms producing microbursts and slow moving storms that don`t
collapse, but rather continue to produce heavy rainfall as they
mosey about will be localized flash flood threats. In most cases a
quick 1 to 2 inches of rain will fall for those areas that get
directly under a storm with the potential for no rain at all in
other areas. Right now high resolution ensemble guidance suggests
that the reasonable worst case scenario (the top 10 percent of all
rainfall forecasts from hundreds of models) is 3-4 inches where
storms persist instead of collapse as they move slowly across the
state. Whatever rain falls tomorrow will come down efficiently and
quickly as the moisture content of the air is fully tropical,
capable of dumping 2-3 inch per hour rainfall rates. While flash
flooding is not expected to become a widespread enough threat to
warrant a flood watch, we will have to watch radar and satellite
trends closely to make sure we get ahead of any localized flash
flooding event.

On Wednesday the upper trough is expected to nudge a little bit
farther south over Arkansas. Overall this keeps the warm and humid
air in place over much of the state, so Wednesday will be fairly
similar to Tuesday`s weather, but everything will be shifted a bit
south. Because Arkansas is more or less in the middle of
everything on Tuesday, nudging farther south actually brings a bit
of dry air aloft (important distinction, because the ground will
remain warm and humid) over the northwestern third or so of the
state. While the remainder of the state won`t notice much of a
difference, this should lead to slightly less rain and storm
chances up in northwest Arkansas Wednesday afternoon.

Thursday and Friday...The aforementioned extremely slow moving
upper trough is expected to nudge even farther south over Arkansas
late this week ushering some more dry air aloft in over the state.
Once again, this won`t necessarily change anything weather wise
for what we feel on the ground. It will largely remain just about
as warm and humid as Monday - Wednesday, but we will see a notable
drop off in coverage of storms each afternoon. Afternoon showers
and storms will still be possible, but their coverage will be
isolated at best as we close out the work week.

As we move into the weekend the weak trough is expected to have
either dissipated or moved east of Arkansas, taking away the large
scale tendency to slowly converge everything over the state. This
will result in less clouds and lower rain chances during the peak
heating hours of the day which will just translate to slightly
warmer temperatures. We`ll have to watch closely to see if the
combination of continued low-level humidity and the increase in
heat is enough to warrant a heat advisory, but for now it looks
like afternoon heat index values will remain just below 105
degrees. This may change as we get better model data as the
weekend approaches.

No significant change in weather conditions is expected in the
longer range forecast as we start talking about next work week.

Cavanaugh

&&

.AVIATION...
(06Z TAFS)
Issued at 1239 AM CDT Tue Jul 8 2025

Scattered showers activity over portions of the northern and
portions of the central part of Arkansas will continue to
decrease in coverage and will eventually dissipate around sunrise.
Light and variable winds will prevail through the rest of the
overnight hours into the early morning across all terminals. Hi-
res CAMs early this morning shows yet another day of diurnally
driven shower and thunderstorm activity by this afternoon and
persisting into the evening hours. The main aviation impacts will
be gusty thunderstorm outflow winds and heavy rainfall that will
temporarily reduce visibilities into the MVFR/IFR. Otherwise, VFR
conditions will prevail through the TAF period.

&&

.PRELIMINARY POINT TEMPS/POPS...
Batesville AR     87  71  88  71 /  60  30  60  10
Camden AR         92  72  88  72 /  60  40  70  20
Harrison AR       86  69  87  68 /  60  30  30  10
Hot Springs AR    91  71  88  71 /  60  30  70  10
Little Rock   AR  90  74  88  74 /  60  30  70  10
Monticello AR     92  74  88  73 /  60  30  80  20
Mount Ida AR      89  71  88  70 /  60  30  70  10
Mountain Home AR  85  69  87  69 /  50  30  40  10
Newport AR        90  73  89  73 /  60  30  50  10
Pine Bluff AR     92  73  87  72 /  60  30  70  20
Russellville AR   90  72  89  72 /  60  30  50  10
Searcy AR         89  71  89  72 /  60  30  60  10
Stuttgart AR      91  74  88  74 /  60  30  60  20

&&

.LZK WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
None.
&&

$$

SHORT TERM...66
LONG TERM....66
AVIATION...Kelly