Thunderstorm Wind — Dallas, Arkansas

2014-04-03 · near Dalark, Dallas, Arkansas

Event narrative

A bow echo caused a swath of wind damage. Hundreds of trees were snapped off or uprooted and many utility lines were knocked down. A vacant house in Manning was crushed by a falling tree and the roofs of two mobile homes were damaged. Southeast of Tulip, the roof of a house was damaged. In Carthage, a falling tree knocked some windows out of a house and crushed a pickup truck, and a metal building had part of its roof removed. At the Fairview community north of Sparkman, a house caught fire after an accident with candles, which were being used to light the house after power lines were knocked down. The house burned to the ground. Boys 2 and 3 years old were killed in the fire and their father suffered burns while trying to rescue them. Power was knocked out to the entire county.

Wider weather episode

Severe thunderstorms developed on the 3rd ahead of a cold front that was advancing into a warm and humid air mass. During the evening of the 3rd, several of the storms produced very large hail in north central Arkansas. From the late evening hours of the 3rd into the very early morning hours of the 4th, thunderstorms swept across southern Arkansas, producing wind damage. The most severe damage occurred as a bow echo moved through.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (34.0155, -92.8800)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 500101. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.