Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Severe Weather Week Is Scheduled

It's safe to say everyone's tired of hearing about severe weather and the damage it can do.

However, it has reached the time of year when severe weather can occur in the blink of an eye.

Because of this, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has proclaimed the week of Feb. 18-24 as severe weather awareness week in the state.

To help people prepare for severe weather, a statewide tornado drill is scheduled to be held between 9-9:30 a.m., Wednesday, Feb. 21  weather permitting.

It's important for people to know the difference between a weather watch and warning.

When a warning is issued, it means severe weather is imminent, while a watch means severe weather is possible.

One of the deadliest aspects of severe weather is flash flooding. Flash floods are the single largest weather-related killer, taking more lives than tornadoes nationally.

About half of those who die in flash flooding are in vehicles. It takes about two feet of water to move a car and sweep it downstream.

Large vehicles aren't any safer than small ones. The bigger cars may weigh more, but they also have more surface area for the water to hit and move.

No one was killed or hurt last year in flash floods.

Oddly enough, June saw more flash flooding than any other moth, with more than a foot of rain falling in some areas of the state, mainly in western Arkansas.

With tornadoes, there have been 1,315 verified from 1950-2000, with 328 people being killed in them.

During this 50-year span, White County has suffered the most getting 40 tornadoes and having 59 people die in them. Woodruff County is next having 25 tornadoes kill 30 people in a half-century.

According to information from the National Weather Service, 1999 was a record year for tornadoes with 107 noted. In 2000, however, there were 37 twisters verified in the state.

No one was killed by a tornado in 2000, but 12 people were hurt.

Normally, though, the state sees 21 tornadoes a year, with an average of five people killed by them.

One of the strongest twisters of 2000 occurred on Feb. 13, in Lonoke County when an F2 hit, injuring two people.

This tornado left the longest track of damage done by a twister all year in the state.

The rest of the tornadoes in the state were either classified as F1 or F0. These classifications are from the Fujita Scale (F-scale) which measures the intensity of the winds in a tornado as inferred from an analysis of wind damage.

The scale ranges from F0, with winds form 40-72 mph causing light damage, to the rare F5, which has winds from 261-318 mph and causes massive damage.

While the twisters didn't kill anyone, three people died as a result of thunderstorms and straight-line winds, while 12 were injured.

One death and two injuries occurred in Miller County, a mile east of Texarkana, when a tree fell on a mobile home.

A second death was in Marianna, Lee County, when a tree fell on a car because of the high winds.

The third fatality was in Columbia County, at Magnesia Springs, when a tree fell on a house.

The thunderstorms of 2000 were more than just thunder, lightning and rain. These storms also brought hurricane force winds.

When winds reach 74 miles an hour over water it is considered to be a hurricane. On land it is termed as straight-line winds.

During Y2K, winds were clocked at 98 mph six miles south of Nashville; at 92 mph in DeQueen; and at 90 mph in five other counties.

These winds wreaked havoc, ripping trees out of the ground, overturning vehicles and blowing roofs from structures.

According to the NWS, winds such as these occur every year because of thunderstorms, and the damage is often mistaken for tornadoes.

Another weather problem Arkansans have to deal with is hail. There were no deaths or injuries because of hail last year, and this region was pretty much spared any hail damage at all.

The largest reported hailstones in 2000 included a 4.5 inch specimen at Lavaca in Sebastian County; and baseball size hail in Charleston, Franklin County.

Two people were injured by lightning in 2000, one while talking on the phone and the other standing in his yard.