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 Antoinette Grajeda, Arkansas Advocate
May 8, 2025

Arkansas’ education secretary notified the state education board Thursday of his intent to recommend a Level 5 – Intensive Support classification for the Blytheville School District due to ongoing academic and administrative challenges. 

Education Secretary Jacob Oliva said, with the board’s support, he’d like to schedule a special board meeting in Blytheville in the next two to three weeks so they can hear from community members and formally recommend increasing the district’s current Level 4 classification to the highest level of state support. 

“This is a school district where there’s opportunities for students and families to be very successful. There is no reason that this school district should continue to be the failure factory that it is,” Oliva said. “And it’s becoming more and more apparent the reason they’re in the state they are is because they do lack governance and leadership.”

The State Board of Education visited Blytheville in August after being alerted to concerns with the Northeast Arkansas district last July. The district has struggled with declining student enrollment over the last decade, according to Deputy Commissioner Stacy Smith, who provided an overview of Blytheville’s situation to the board at its monthly meeting Thursday. The district has 1,260 students this year, about half of its 2014 enrollment. 

Students are struggling academically, according to last year’s statewide testing scores, which showed more than half of students in English language arts and science and 76% of students in math scored in the lowest achievement level, Smith said. 

About half of Blytheville’s teachers are unlicensed, but the education department has helped them all get on licensure pathways, she said.

Arkansas Department of Education and Crowley’s Ridge Education Service Cooperative staff have provided about 100 and 185 days, respectively, of onsite support and training, Smith said. 

There’s been a “dance of inconsistency” at the district, which was making progress but now appears to be backsliding, she said. While staff members seem receptive to making changes, Smith said there’s dysfunction between the central office and the Blytheville School Board because “we don’t have the right people in either place.”

Since 2018, the district has had two full-time superintendents and three interim superintendents. Jennifer Blankenship was appointed as the current interim superintendent on June 12, 2024. She also served in the interim role from July through December 2021. 

After the previous superintendent was officially terminated last August, the board reviewed candidates in late November and decided to keep Blankenship. A consulting firm hired in February presented two of 13 applicants in late April, but the board declined to interview them and reposted the position. 

“Our biggest concern at this point is we are in May and we have no superintendent, and we have walked with this district for an entire year providing lots of support,” Smith said. 

Arkansas education board removes Lee County’s fiscal distress status

Though the board unanimously agreed to reject the superintendent candidates, Smith said there’s a “lack of coherence” and dysfunction within the board. 

“When we were there before, much of the public comment in the meeting was about the dysfunction of the board, it wasn’t about what was happening in the school,” she said. “It was about this public image of the board.”

State education board members expressed support for Oliva’s request for the special meeting, including Blytheville native Randy Henderson who said he was “very disappointed” in the situation. Fellow board member Jeff Wood cautioned his colleagues that upgrading Blytheville’s classification to a Level 5 isn’t something that should be taken lightly. 

“Level 5 intervention rarely has the celebratory results that we’re looking for on the backside of Level 5; it is not an answer in itself,” Wood said. “There is still a long road of work ahead even after Level 5 consideration. I would hope for a strong plan, decisive plan, quick action plan because one thing I learned in the Level 5 I lived through is just the slow process of it didn’t work.”

Wood was appointed in 2016 to serve on the Little Rock School District’s Community Advisory Board when ADE took over that district. When the district was returned to local control in November 2020, Wood was elected to serve on the district’s new school board. 

The process of considering the classification change must begin with written notification to the Blytheville School District about the intent to recommend the Level 5 classification, Smith said. The district has the right to appeal and ask for a hearing, or the board can make the recommendation without a hearing, she said. 

If the classification is approved, the board can determine what sanctions go along with it, such as dissolving the local board or approving a state takeover of the district. 

Districts currently under the Level 5 classification are Earle, Lee County, Helena-West Helena and Marvell-Elaine. 

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 Education secretary to recommend increased support for east Arkansas school district 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 appears to report on the educational challenges faced by Blytheville School District and the state’s response without overtly promoting a particular political agenda. The tone of the article is primarily factual, focusing on the issues of academic performance, administrative difficulties, and lack of leadership within the district. While it highlights the state’s efforts to intervene with increased support, the language used, particularly the criticism of the district’s governance, reflects a concern for systemic improvement. The report is neutral, but the implicit critique of local leadership and emphasis on state intervention leans slightly toward a Center-Left perspective, focusing on governmental responsibility to correct perceived failures.