by Ainsley Platt, Arkansas Advocate
May 9, 2025

“Generational” April storms that brought historic rainfall and a record number of tornadoes to states in the Central Mississippi river valley like Arkansas were made 40% more likely due to the warming climate, according to a new report from an international coalition of climate researchers.

The analysis, published Thursday by World Weather Attribution, which is housed under Imperial College London, says the rainfall was “the worst ever recorded in this region,” with economic damages estimated between $80 and $90 million across the affected states. The vast majority occurred in Arkansas, which had roughly $78 million in agricultural damages.

Researchers, who analyzed weather data and climate models for the study, told reporters during a briefing Tuesday that it would cost Arkansas farmers $42 million to replant.

Meanwhile, the University of Arkansas System, which was not part of the study, came to similar conclusions. Ryan McGeeney, a communications specialist for the University of Arkansas System’s Division of Agriculture, said they estimated there were roughly $79 million in agricultural damages, mainly as a result of flooding.

The timing of the flooding mitigated the impact, McGeeney said. Winter wheat crops in the affected areas were a total loss, he said, while corn also suffered damage but could be replanted. The soybean crop was rebounding, but the jury was still out on whether the rice crop would be affected, he added.

In the grand scheme of things, McGeeney said, $79 million is a drop in the bucket compared to the economic impact of agriculture as a whole in Arkansas — $24.3 billion.

Bernadette Woods Placky, the chief meteorologist for Climate Central, which participated in the research, credited the National Weather Service for accurate and early warnings that likely saved numerous lives.

“Staff in local National Weather Service offices worked around the clock to provide life-saving information and services,” Woods Placky wrote. “This is an example of how critical these employees are and why recent workforce cuts risk undermining their ability to keep people safe.”

Multiple experts have raised alarms in recent months about proposals to cut funding to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — of which the NWS is a part — fearing that cuts to NOAA will hamstring the weather office’s ability to make accurate forecasts. 

Many local NWS offices are already understaffed, and a hiring freeze that has been in place since the start of the second Trump administration has left the service unable to hire the specialized technicians needed to repair its radar systems or to fill open forecasting positions.

According to the analysis, the similar extreme rainfall events are “relatively rare, expected to occur in today’s climate only once every 90-240 years.” However, in a cooler climate, the analysis found, “extreme rainfall such as observed would be even rarer.”

“Fossil fuel warming is clearly driving more intense, and increasingly costly, extreme weather across the US,” said Ben Clarke of the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London.

Storm formation

The April storm event was significant for a number of reasons, said Shel Winkley, a meteorologist and a weather and climate engagement specialist for Climate Central. Not only was it one of the most intense spring rain events ever recorded for the region; by the end of the day on April 2, the NWS had issued 728 severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings — the third-most ever.

The region saw “relentless” rounds of storms April 3-6, dumping more than a foot of rain on some areas, Winkley said. These persistent storms were part of what is called a mesoscale convective system — a massive storm that is larger than an individual thunderstorm, but smaller than an extratropical cyclone.

While storms in Arkansas and the southeast tend to move west to east, a persistent “ridge” of near-record-high pressure settled east of Arkansas and the other affected states. According to Winkley, this high pressure area forced a low pressure system (thunderstorms, like tropical storms, are often associated with low pressure systems) to stall over Arkansas and the other states instead of continuing to move eastward.

The high pressure ridge caused warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico to be drawn into the lower levels of the storm, providing most of the fuel needed for the storms to continue to dump torrential rainfall for days, the analysis found.

The area where the high pressure and low pressure met — the “stalled front” — became the pathway that the rounds of storms travelled along, continually dumping rain on the same area for days because the front was stuck in place, he said.

Meanwhile, researchers said that while the states impacted by the rainfall event were not coastal states, the storm itself was helped along by historically warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, which increased the amount of moisture in the atmosphere and drove the storms. 

Arkansas town hit hard by tornado making progress

According to Climate Central, the average temperature in Arkansas last month was 5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer, compared to its 30-year average. Rainfall, comparatively, was nearly 250% higher than average for the month.

Warmer temperatures and Gulf waters are contributing to more convective available potential energy (CAPE) days where there is sufficient instability and moisture in the atmosphere to spawn severe weather conditions, Winkley said. Northeast Arkansas, where the worst flooding occurred last month, in particular is seeing this trend, he said. 

An increase in CAPE days doesn’t necessarily mean there would be an increase in severe thunderstorms or tornadoes, just that the potential for those storms to form was occurring more frequently.

He did, however, say that when storms did form, they tended to be much more severe.

Arkansas has been hammered by severe weather in recent years. Numerous tornadoes devastated communities in 2023, 2024 and 2025, including in Little Rock, while severe river and flash flooding has occurred on multiple occasions in the last 12 months. June 2023 saw weeks of persistent severe weather, with damaging straight-line winds and hailstorms that dropped hailstones as large as four inches. 

While some federal assistance to respond to last month’s flooding was approved, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is appealing the Trump administration’s denial of assistance for those affected by an earlier round of storms in March. That line of storms spawned multiple violent tornadoes that tore through Cave City and other, smaller towns in the region. 

The denial of federal aid comes as the Trump administration debates eliminating FEMA, which has disbursed billions of federal aid in the wake of natural disasters to affected communities. Meanwhile, the administration announced Thursday that it would stop tracking the costs of the most expensive natural disasters.

Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com.

The post Report: April storms that caused “generational” flooding made 40% more likely by climate change appeared first on arkansasadvocate.com

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

The article primarily presents a factual analysis of the link between climate change and the increased likelihood of severe weather events, specifically focusing on April’s storms in Arkansas. While it discusses the scientific findings of an international climate research team, it includes subtle commentary on the impacts of climate change, with quotes from climate experts like Ben Clarke. The article also touches on the potential political ramifications of weather-related federal aid, highlighting concerns about staffing cuts within the National Weather Service and proposed reductions to NOAA, which aligns with a critique of the Trump administration’s policies. This nuanced tone, with attention to the political aspects of environmental and disaster response, leans slightly toward a Center-Left perspective but does not overtly advocate for one political side. The factual reporting on climate science and weather events is clear and balanced.

SUMMARY: Cardinal Robert Pvost, now Pope Leo XIV, became the first American-born pope in history after his election, surprising even his family. Born in Chicago, the 69-year-old Augustinian missionary has a background in math and theology. His first mass was held at the Sistine Chapel, where he emphasized building bridges, embracing dialogue, and showing compassion. Pope Leo XIV spent much of his life in Peru, even gaining citizenship. Reactions to his election have been enthusiastic, with praise from his hometown, Villanova University, and even the White House, as people celebrate his historic appointment.

Cardinal Robert Prevost, now known as Pope Leo the fourteenth, was born in Chicago and is the first American pontiff in history.

Source

by Tess Vrbin and Sonny Albarado, Arkansas Advocate
May 9, 2025

The Arkansas State Library Board on Friday will disburse public funds to libraries for the last time in the 2025 fiscal year, and likely the last time before all seven board members will be replaced.

As local library directors wait for their regular shares of state funding, some continue to await a long-delayed avenue for rural libraries to be eligible for more state funding. An amendment to the State Library’s fiscal year 2024 appropriation bill introduced by Sen. John Payton, R-Wilburn, required the Arkansas Department of Education to alter library funding eligibility standards to allow smaller libraries not supported with a local millage access to state aid.

The original deadline for establishing those standards was July 1, 2024, the start of the current fiscal year.

“We want [libraries] to receive local support,” Payton told a Joint Budget subcommittee at the time.  “We don’t want them dependent on the grants and aid that might come through the State Library system, but it’s impossible for them to pass and maintain one mill if they’re a city of less than 5,000.”

Arkansas Constitutional Amendment 30 prohibits libraries in cities with fewer than 5,000 people from being supported by local property taxes. Payton said he presented the proposal to change the rules on behalf of his constituents in Ash Flat, which has a population of just over 1,100 and a library funded by the city government.

Eligibility for state aid would allow the Ash Flat Library to apply for state and federal grants it currently cannot access, Terry Hill, chairman of the library’s governing board, told the Advocate.

Subsequent State Library appropriations, for fiscal 2025 and 2026, reiterated the need to broaden access to library funding, but the rule-making process stalled last year, meaning rural libraries still cannot access the funds, according to library directors and the education department.

State Library Director Jennifer Chilcoat told the board in a Feb. 14, 2024, email that the rules had to be in place before the board met that August to start disbursing state funds for fiscal year 2025. If not, the State Library would be “in violation of” either its standards for state aid to public libraries or the legal requirement to create the rules, Chilcoat said in the email.

The State Library appropriation bills state that the new rules must “allow a public library to adequately demonstrate a source of revenue in lieu of the requirement to maintain a one-mill county or city property tax,” which is currently a standard for libraries to receive state aid. Without formal rules, the current standard limits which libraries can receive state grants. A mill is equal to $1 dollar for every $1,000 in assessed value on real estate.

Calhoun County is Arkansas’ most rural county, and its library system would receive an $18,000 funding boost under broader state aid eligibility standards, director Allie Gosselink told the Advocate. The Hampton library would also be able to increase its hours of operation from 28 to 40 hours per week and would bolster its early literacy services and upgrade its technology, Gosselink said.

She and John McGraw, regional director of the Faulkner-Van Buren Library System, were both on the advisory committee that drafted new rules required by the 2023 law.

“We talked about every piece of that and tried to decide what worked, what didn’t work, what was detrimental, and we changed the rules based on what we thought would be fair,” Gosselink said.

Assistant Attorney General Sarah DeBusk told the State Library Board in November that proposed rules must be approved by the education secretary and governor and a public comment period before final approval by the Arkansas Legislative Council.

The Department of Education’s legal division is responsible for ensuring the rules are in the proper format before they return to the state agency that drafted them. The State Library Board would be responsible for opening a 30-day public comment period on the rules after receiving the formal version from the education department, and Chilcoat urged the board in the February 2024 email to plan for a special meeting the following month.

Education department attorneys were “tentatively predicting that we should either hear back from or receive approval from” Sanders’ office in the subsequent few weeks, Chilcoat wrote.

“There is a timeline that we are keenly aware of to get the changes in place before the start of the 2025 State Fiscal Year,” she said in her February 2024 email. “For that reason, we cannot wait until the May board meeting to get these Rules in front of you and the public.”

The State Library Board has not voted on the proposed rules but has a new deadline of this July 1 to act, according to emails obtained by the Advocate via the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.

Possible alternatives

The still unofficial rules and possible actions the Library Board can take were the subject of late April emails between Chilcoat and ADE Chief of Staff Courtney Salas-Ford.

Since the board doesn’t have new rules to address Payton’s 2023 appropriations amendment, Chilcoat wrote on April 25, “we need to have a stopgap formula beginning in August in case the promulgation process is not complete at that time.

“If there aren’t new State Aid Rules in place when the new board members begin their terms, these drafts will give them a template which they can use or dismiss, but it will give them a starting point from which to work if they so choose,” the email said.

One of the last laws the General Assembly passed before adjourning this month was Act 903, which will dismiss the entire State Library Board and require Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders to appoint seven new members in August.

In an April 30 email, Chilcoat told Salas-Ford she has “two versions of a one-time state aid formula for the current board to choose from and approve so that the new board doesn’t have to deal with the first quarter payments at their first meeting.

“One formula simply removes the MLS (Master’s of Library Science) credit from all recipients of it. The other is a simple across-the-board percentage decrease [in state aid to all libraries].

“Both are included so that we can honor Senator Payton’s amendment to include those libraries that don’t or can’t collect the millage previously required. Of course, the current board can also vote to pass the responsibility to the next board.”

Gosselink and McGraw both told lawmakers in April that the inaction on the proposed rules was a reason the Legislature should not dissolve the State Library and its board and transfer their responsibilities and funds to the education department. A House committee rejected the proposed dissolution, one of several bills that generated hours of debate about library oversight and funding throughout the 2025 legislative session.

The new rules for state aid to libraries are on Friday’s Library Board agenda.

Gosselink said she hoped Friday’s board meeting would create “a little bit of clarity” for her library’s funding for the rest of the state’s fiscal year.

Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com.

The post Some Arkansas libraries still waiting new state funding rules now a year overdue appeared first on arkansasadvocate.com

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The article provides a detailed account of discussions surrounding library funding in Arkansas, particularly focusing on state aid, the impact of legislation, and the concerns of library directors. It reports on the proposed amendments and the actions taken by both political figures and state agencies, without evident favoring of one side. While it covers the perspectives of both Senator Payton (a Republican) and library advocates, the tone remains neutral, presenting the issue from multiple viewpoints. There is no overt ideological stance taken by the author, and the article largely reflects factual reporting on the ongoing legislative process and its implications for rural libraries.