J.B. Weisenfels has lived in rural Arkansas for three decades. She is a writer, a mom, and a graduate student. She is also an avid collector of tacky fish whatnots, slightly chipped teapots, and other old things. In her spare time she enjoys driving to the nearest creek to sit a while. If you were to visit her, she'd try to feed you cornbread.
We’ve all heard the jokes. “Don’t like the weather in Arkansas? Wait five minutes.” Every summer we find our Facebook feeds full of memes about hobbits throwing rings into our yards. Every spring it’s a hand coming up from beneath flood waters. Truth be told, lots of states are sharing the same memes and making the same jokes. The difference is, in Arkansas all those things are actually true. Just last week I saw a map of the Natural State that had half the state freezing while the other half was advised to look out for tornadoes. Below you’ll find nine examples of times Arkansas weather was just way too weird.
Since record keeping began in 1819, no snow was ever recorded in May in the Natural State for nearly two hundred years. In May of 2013 that all changed when snow fell on northwest Arkansas. It wasn't just a light dusting, either. That late spring snowfall totaled five inches in the town of Decatur.
The picture above was taken on May 3.
2. When western Arkansas needed to look out for snow and bitter cold while eastern Arkansas had to look out for tornadoes.
That’s right, the temperature in Fort Smith, Arkansas reached 88 degrees on October 31st this year, but it was hot all over the rest of the state too. The perfect year for those thin fairy costumes and luau themes.
In 2015, the temperature in El Dorado the day after Christmas was 80 degrees. That year we didn't even care about a white Christmas. We just wanted a Christmas where we didn't have to run the air conditioner.
6. In 2015, when we had drought, rain, drought, rain, drought, rain, drought . . .
During the hottest summer on record, on August 10th of 1936, the temperature in Subiaco reached 117 degrees. It might take awhile and you’d have to set some foil down, but you could have cooked a right nice breakfast.
To see a list of the strangest things that have ever happened in the Natural State, click here. For more oddities that make Arkansas the weirdest state, click here. If you’re looking for some weird places to go, try this or these.
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