Hail in Hempstead County, Arkansas

Golf ball size hail reported in the town of Ozan.

Numerous supercell thunderstorms developed late in the evening on April 25th along a warm front extending from southern Oklahoma into western Arkansas, well ahead of an advancing cold front and dry line upstream over the Texas/Oklahoma panhandles. The environment farther downstream across Northeast Texas, Southwest Arkansas, and Northern Louisiana was very unstable and strongly sheared. This environment favored a continuation of severe thunderstorms and the potential for new supercell development. Nocturnal low-level cooling and capping were increasing, which generally kept the primary threat as large hail. However, given the persistent low-level shear, any surface-based thunderstorms also had the potential to produce some isolated damaging wind gusts. As a result, numerous reports of large and even very large hail were documented across Howard and Hempstead Counties in addition to damaging wind gusts.