Arkansas Storm Team Weather Blog: Beryl to bring tornado threat

Arkansas is directly in the path of Beryl. The National Hurricane Center is forecasting Beryl to make landfall south of Houston Texas as a category 1 hurricane then turn to the northeast and move over Arkansas.

By the time Beryl moves over the Natural State, it will be much weaker. It will no longer be a hurricane or even a tropical storm, it will weaken into a tropical depression. That means the winds will be 30 mph with gusts as high as 40 mph.

The much weaker Beryl will still bring substantial impacts to Arkansas. The main threat we are watching is severe weather, more specifically tornadoes. It’s common for the remnants of a tropical system to spawn short-lived tornadoes.

The Storm Prediction Center has parts of Arkansas under a level 2 low risk for severe weather Monday afternoon into Tuesday morning. They have much of the state under a level 1 very low risk.

In the risk area, the main threat is tornadoes. The last time a tropical system moved over Arkansas it spawned 8 tornadoes.

In 2020 Hurricane Laura moved over Arkansas as a tropical storm and caused the largest August tornado outbreak in Arkansas history. Beryl won’t be nearly as strong as Laura, but we still need to be weather-aware Monday afternoon through Tuesday morning.

The other impact that we could see is flooding. I don’t think flooding will be a widespread problem, but with 3-6″ of rainfall expected in the western half of the state, flood-prone areas could be at risk.

The National Weather Service has issued flood watches for much of Texas and southwest Arkansas.

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