Photo courtesy of Entergy Arkansas
Severe thunderstorms rolled through the Twin Lakes Area on Thursday and did significant damage throughout the late afternoon and early evening. It also resulted in widespread power outages, leading to Friday’s classes being canceled at the Flippin School District. Currently, there are no reports of injuries.
The storms resulted in more than 20 power poles breaking around Ranger Boats’ headquarters on the north side of Flippin late Thursday afternoon. As a result, power lines were down across Arkansas Highway 178, leading to the temporary closure of the highway. There was also a report of an unidentified motorist driving through Flippin when a tree fell on her vehicle and damaged her windshield. The driver was able to avoid injury.
More damage has been reported in the area. Nearly a mile southwest of Gassville, shingles were blown off a roof, and tree limbs were broken. Power poles were also broken nearly a mile west of Rea Valley, and trees were down in areas of Harrison and south of Harrison.
In Searcy County, a trained weather spotter stated he observed a lowering on the north side of Marshall moving northeast. The winds reportedly correlated with circulation previously reported. The winds were too far away to see any rotation. In addition, large tree limbs were broken in St. Joe.
The storms led to strong winds in southern Missouri as well. In Howell County, trained weather spotters reported rotation near the intersection with Missouri Routes VV and PP southwest of Brandsville and measured a wind gust of 72 miles-per-hour in Mountain View, Mo. In addition, trees were reported down in West Plains. In Douglas County, a garage door was blown off, and several dead trees were down in Brushyknob. A tree was also down at Missouri Highway 14 nearly a mile east-southeast of Ava.
There were also multiple reports of hail in the area. Pea-sized hail was spotted at KTLO, Classic Hits and The Boot, the official reporting station for the National Weather Service in Mountain Home. Quarter-sized hail was also reported in other parts of the area, and half dollar-sized hail was spotted in Douglas County.
Thousands of residents lost their power as a result of the storm, and hundreds remain under an outage overnight. North Arkansas Electric Cooperative had reported power out to over 3,300 of its members in Baxter County. Entergy Arkansas reported outages to over 2,300 of its customers in Marion County and over 400 in Baxter County.
There was one confirmed tornado reported in Arkansas. The tornado went through Hot Springs Village around 8 Thursday night, resulting in multiple structures being destroyed. Baseball-sized hail was also reported with the storm.
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