NWA Weather

[Mith242]

Blah, why can't it be snow? Looks like another winter without much snow again.

[jim9251]

Give me snow anytime! I hate ice. I was in south Arkansas in 93 when we got 3" of ice and was without power for weeks. It was awful. Now the weather guys are calling for over 1 1/2" of ice followed by sleet and we may have "thunder ice" tonight. The grocery stores are running out of things and total chaos. Already one killed and the ASP has lost count of the number of accidents. And it's only 6pm. Wonder what tomorrow will bring?

[zman9810]

As of right now the streets in Fayetteville aren't in bad shape - I think that's a combination of the work the city has done to treat them and the temp rising to 30 degrees. They are slushy and I'm sure you could go off the road easily but are drivable. It was colder at 5PM so if the temp is rising the chance of it getting down to 17 doesn't seem likely. Maybe we'll luck out and just get more cold rain out of this storm.

[Mith242]

It hasn't cooled down any and we're right around freezing. Also looks like we've hit a dry pocket and there's no precip either. Hard to tell but it doesn't look any worse outside than when I went to bed. Most of the people I saw driving by last night didn't seem to be having too much trouble. I got the impression the roads were slushy. I think eventually some colder temps will filter in and then things might get worse. But for right now I think NWA has gotten off sorta easy compared to other parts of the state.

[strmchsr77]

Still hanging around 31 degrees for much of Fayetteville this morning with moderate freezing rain. There are now some power outages around the area as well. Swepco has around 4000 people out but I don't know about Ozarks Electric. Mt Sequoyah area went out around 6:30 this morning. Now everything depends on if we stay at 32 or below for the rest of the day because there is still the potential for another 1/2 to 1 inch of ice.

[jim9251]

River birch tree in my backyard. Everything is coated in ice.

[strmchsr77]

Thanks for the picture Jim. I'm stuck in Tulsa so I won't get to see the ice storm this time.

Trees and powerlines have begun to come down at a quicker rate across NWA. Currently around 8200 in Washington County without power (AEP only, I don't know about Ozarks) and 4500 in Benton County. Still alot of freezing rain yet to come so I would expect these numbers to continue to climb quickly. Still could see close to another inch of ice in some areas. Ice Storm Warning continues through Wednesday morning.

[zman9810]

Yeah, the trees are really starting to take a hit- this one sounded like a gunshot when it fell. Lights have been flickering all morning but power is still on.

[jim9251]

This tree in my backyard just fell on my house. Luckily there's no damage to the roof. Guess what I'll be doing this weekend?

[strmchsr77]

Keep the pics coming guys.

It looks like the worst case senario is actually happening currently across the Fayetteville area. As of now AEP/SWEPCO has over 41,000 homes/business without power just in washington county. That is 88% (I've upped the percentage 3 times since I started typing) of its customers and it keeps going up. I am guessing that it is going to be hard for most of you to even post anymore without power.

Still a lot of precip to go tonight. The freezing rain is training over the area and will continue to until sometime tonight. The temps have fallen back into the upper 20s but I am having trouble finding a weather station in Fayetteville that is even online. NWS is still saying that we could have another 1/2 inch of ice on top of what we have now. That will probably bring the rest of the trees and lines down. Then we may transition to a little more light sleet or snow. I'll update again when more info come out.

Stay safe!

[slyder1]

It looks like you guys will be getting more freezing rain until about midnight. I'm just glad that Springfield didn't have to go through another ice storm. I saw someone saying that power is out for alot of people... expect that to only get worse as the trees are weighted down with more and more ice until they eventually fall on the power lines. The roads up here are horrible mainly because we're getting a lot of sleet/snow, but you guys shouldn't have much trouble getting the roads clear because the salt melts ice much easier. If any of you don't have a generater I would get one because if it's anything like Springfield had in 07', you will be without power for at least a week.

[jim9251]

Power was out from about 2pm yesterday to about 1am this morning. All I could hear last night was crashing limbs and the snapping of trees. Very eerie. 15 degrees and light snow this morning. Everything is coated in 3-4 inches of ice and snow. All of my trees have limbs down. At least we have buried utilities and don't have to worry about stepping on a down line.

The view from my patio door

[cowbreath]

I had to come to the office to enjoy some electricity. I hope when I go home there is power, but sounds like there is a lot of work for the power company. I don't know why though because I didn't see any power lines down while driving. Our neighborhood had been cleared last year of obstructive branches. I just hope we can survive tonight because our house is freezing inside now.

[jim9251]

They said on the news 150,000 or so are still without power. The problem is they are afraid to charge the substations because there are still plenty of down lines and fallen poles. Watching channel 5 news and their very cool live web cam drive around, historic Fayetteville looks like a bomb went off.

[jllive]

I finally got my power back on at 6pm today. I live on Leverett, so hopefully anyone else on or about Leverett has or will have their power on again soon. I hate to think of anyone having to spend the night without heat because my place was turning frigid just before my power came back on. My neighborhood still looks desolate and lit homes are still spaced out sporadically. Driving through Fayetteville today was really an eye-opening experience. Entire neighborhoods were inaccesible and the amount of debris from fallen tree limbs was incredible.

[jim9251]

I still have power but it keeps flickering. Still have limbs falling. I noticed stores are out of milk and lines at gas stations. This is nuts.

[cowbreath]

Yeah, I'm pretty surprised with the situation. I feared that they were going around clearing off all lines before flipping the switch. However, I wish they would give us more information about it, like what would happen if something went wrong when charging the substation. Information is dull and scarce, and they need people to inform neighborhood groups. I finally saw Swepco vehicles in our neighborhood today, which kind of sucks considering our proximity to one of their makeshift stations at the parking lot across from the Razorback baseball field. It got down to 44 degrees last night in our house, which I don't think I will stay there again tonight if it happens.

[jim9251]

My power went off again today at 2 and just came back on. Friends in Springdale power just came back on after being off since Tuesday. Maybe things will get back to normal by the weekend.

[strmchsr77]

I finally made it over from Tulsa yesterday morning. I ended up doing alot more driving around than working. This is quite a bit worse than the December 07 storm in Tulsa. 1.5 inches of ice for most of Fayetteville, Springdale and southern Benton County. At least my office has power so that is where I slept last night.

Here is an Ice Accumulation Map: MAP

[cowbreath]

Thanks for the map. It's nice to finally see what happened.

We still don't have power, but looks like a lot of people got it back yesterday. Our neighborhood kind of got snubbed with everyone around us having lights on except for us. Well at least we have some places to stay now that have heat. Probably they will get us tomorrow which unfortunately does not mean too much to me if they keep their promise of "saturday by midnight".

[Shantytown Architect]

This ice storm is the worst I can remember since I've lived here. The one in the late 1990s was pretty bad too. (or was it early 2000s?) Anyhow, I'm glad I'm on campus and that we had our own power. We probably had 15 minutes of power outage the whole time. But my hometown of Lincoln hasn't had power since Tuesday. I'll probably help clean up if I go home this weekend.

[zman9810]

Yea! Power is back on. Lights, warm rooms, hot showers, hot meals- it's easy to take for granted until they are gone. Eerie is the perfect word to describe the first two days. Driving through town dodging tree limbs in complete darkness when you're used to seeing clear roads and lots of light was eerie. It was strange though- the university seemed to stay lit up even though I read they had outages. Where do they get power from? One stretch of N. College didn't lose power I think.

I bet there will be a major push to trim trees in the rightaways now and I also bet there isn't a lot of opposition this time around.

[zman9810]

I've got some good ice storm pics to post but photobucket seems to be down. Anyone know what is up with that site?

Good job by the utilities to get their systems up and running although I realize there are still a lot of people out of service. Where the heck is all of this dead wood going to go?

Oh yeah- the UA has a main line coming from SWEPCO that is somewhat immune from the weather, it just wasn't bad enough for it's failure.

[zman9810]

Contiuing Education building on East Ave, downtown Fayetteville.

KNWA van on Fayetteville square. A similar pic taken from taken from the top of the building was on CNN.com.

East Ave looking north towards Dickson, Fayetteville

The trees really took a beating.

[Mith242]

Thanks for the pics. Unfortunately I was pretty busy at work and didn't have much time to get out and take pics. Seemed like I was working from sunrise to sunset there for a while. Also finally nice to have everything back and can start checking UP again. I'm curious to see how things are going to look this Spring with all the trees like this.