Franklin, Arkansas

... The outlook for the upcoming winter...

November 16th through 20th is winter weather awareness week
in Arkansas... and it has been so proclaimed by governor mike
Bebee. Sponsors of the awareness week are the National
Weather Service... the Arkansas department of emergency
management... entergy Arkansas... the electric cooperatives
of Arkansas... the Arkansas National guard... the Arkansas
State Police... and the American Red Cross.

People are asked to take some time and prepare for the upcoming
winter season.

Todays topic is the outlook for the upcoming winter.

Last winter in Arkansas... temperatures averaged close to normal.
Precipitation averaged below normal across most of the state.

The historic ice storm in northern Arkansas was the biggest
weather story of the winter. The ice storm began during the day
on January 26th and ended on the morning of the 28th. Damage
amounted to nearly one billion dollars. More than 450 thousand
electric customers lost power. At one electric cooperative in
northeast Arkansas... only 12 out of the cooperatives
12 thousand customers did not lose power. Power was restored
to all homes and businesses within a month. More than 40
thousand power poles had to be replaced. Telephone service was
knocked out to many areas... and water and sewer service failed
in some places.

Since the winter of 1987-88... only the Winters of 2000-01 and
2002-03 have averaged below normal on temperatures in Little Rock.

The official outlook issued by the National Weather Service for
the upcoming winter indicates that temperatures should trend
toward being below normal over the southeastern half of Arkansas.
Precipitation should trend toward being below normal over the
eastern half of the state. This outlook is based on El Nino /a
warming of the waters in the Pacific Ocean/ increasing somewhat.
If this increase does not occur... adjustments may have to be
made to the outlook.

The Table below shows wintertime normals for Arkansas.

City normal high normal low normal precipitation
Bentonville 47.0 24.7 8.25
Eureka Springs 48.6 28.4 8.60
Fayetteville 47.5 27.0 7.75
Harrison 47.4 28.1 8.85
Mountain Home 46.8 26.0 9.68
Jonesboro 48.6 28.9 11.10
Fort Smith 51.3 30.5 8.35
Batesville 52.0 30.8 10.32
Newport 49.1 31.0 11.54
Dardanelle 52.7 30.7 10.64
Searcy 51.6 27.8 12.11
Conway 51.5 30.8 11.43
Mena 51.4 29.1 11.96
Hot Springs 53.6 31.7 12.82
Little Rock 52.5 33.2 11.65
North Little Rock 52.0 34.1 11.17
Pine Bluff 53.4 33.8 13.62
Camden 55.9 32.7 13.78
Monticello 55.1 32.8 14.94
El Dorado 57.2 34.8 13.97
Texarkana 56.2 37.6 11.71

An important thing to note regarding the outlook for the coming
winter... no matter what the temperature outlook indicates...
variability can be expected in the temperature patterns during the
winter. There are usually some periods of noticeably cold weather
interspersed with milder periods.

Seasonal outlooks are not specific enough to say whether there will
be any big outbreaks of severe thunderstorms or tornadoes during the
winter. However... El Nino patterns in the winter typically favor
less severe weather than normal.

Likewise... seasonal outlooks cannot be specific regarding large ice
or snowstorms. However... the temperature and precipitation trends
expected during the upcoming winter suggest that there will be at least
a few bouts of wintry forms of precipitation during the winter.

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Please visit our web site at www.Srh.NOAA.Gov/lzk