There is a chance that most of the state could see severe weather on Wednesday afternoon, the National Weather Service said.
The forecast for Wednesday is still uncertain, but people should pay attention to it, warned Justin Condry, a meteorologist with the weather service in North Little Rock.
“It is possible that we could see hail or damaging winds in most parts of Arkansas, minus some areas in the north and northwest,” he said on Monday. “But we could also just see a good bit of rain with this system. The severe weather possibility for Wednesday is conditional."
“While wind energy will be more than enough to support strong to severe storms, questions remain about how much instability we will see,” the weather service said in a tweet on Monday.
Condry defined instability as the energy or fuel needed to drive thunderstorms.
He said there is a marginal risk of severe weather for most of the state, including the possibility that storms might be isolated. The storms could include hail or tornadoes, but damaging winds would be the largest concern, Condry said.
“The threat for hail or tornadoes is not zero, but it isn’t high at this point either,” the meteorologist said.
Forecasters will also be watching to see how elevated the storm is, he said.
“If the winds don’t reach the ground, then that also reduces the severity of the weather on Wednesday,” Condry said.
“The storm system will be a fast-moving one; it should enter the state around lunchtime and be gone before dinner,” he said.
The storm could move into Little Rock between 2 and 4 p.m. and out of the state by 7 p.m., Condry said.
“There is a lot that we still don’t know and, on Wednesday morning, we could be looking at a completely different forecast than we are expecting now, but we want people to be aware and keep paying attention,” he said.