Arkansans were waking Thursday morning to temperatures in the single digits and teens, the coldest and driest air of the season so far, the National Weather Service said.
The air was chilliest in northern parts of the state, where at 6 a.m. Mountain Home was just 2 degrees, Fayetteville was 4 and Jonesboro was 8. In Harrison, it was 3 degrees but a southerly wind made it feel like 9 degrees below zero.
A wind chill advisory was in effect through 10 a.m. for the northern two rows of counties and some of eastern Arkansas.
Temperatures were somewhat warmer further south — 11 in Little Rock, 13 in Pine Bluff and 14 in El Dorado at 6 a.m. — but the whole state was expected to stay brutally cold. Highs across most of the state were expected to remain below freezing all day and those points in south Arkansas that do eclipse the freezing mark were forecast to do so only by a couple degrees.
Several thousand Entergy customers, meanwhile, were enduring the cold without electricity after scattered power failures across the state.
The weather service warned "extra caution should be taken due to the very cold temperatures" and advised people to check on elderly family and friends, make sure outdoor pets can keep warm, bring in outdoor plants and prepare pipes against freezing.
Temperatures were expected to warm slightly over the weekend, but a system was forecast to bring precipitation to the state at the same time. It will arrive by Sunday morning and last several days, the weather service said, noting "it will be cold enough for a period of some freezing rain with the rain, mainly in the mornings and late nights."
"Some accumulations may be possible," the agency said, adding that only northern Arkansas should be cold enough for any freezing rain to fall during the days, "and details concerning this event will continue to be fine tuned in the coming days."