Arkansas’ year in weather began with a tornadic evening in January and ended with a Christmas night ice storm and blizzard that knocked out power to thousands.

Sandwiched between was a drought that receded only when the remnants of a hurricane blew through the state.

During 2012, Arkansans saw softball-sized hail in Lawrence County, 115 mph straight-line winds in Marvell, a landspout tornado in Lonoke County and thundersnow - a rare phenomenon of thunder and lightning during a snowstorm.

At least five people died in weather-related accidents in 2012 - two in flooding and three during the Christmas snowstorm.

“The weather kept it interesting in Arkansas all year,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Andy Chiuppi of Memphis, who monitors weather conditions in northeast Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee.

Eighteen tornadoes struck the state, including seven that were reported in southern Arkansas on Jan. 22, when a cold air mass from the north collided with warm, moist Gulf air over the state. Two people were injured in the storms; three of the twisters carried winds up to 135 mph.

Marvell reported straightline winds of 115 mph on Jan. 22 from a thunderstorm, and Helena-West Helena experienced 100 mph winds the same day.

On June 3, a storm pounded Smithville in Lawrence County with 4.5-inch diameter hail. Two-and-a-half-inch diameter hail also fell in Hickory Flat in White County, and 80 mph winds associated with the storm system were reported in Washington, Carroll and Madison counties.

A day later, a landspout, a weak tornado, touched down in a Lonoke County field near Carlisle. Landspouts are fairly rare and form on hot, humid days as towering clouds cause an upward, rotational pull. The state sees an average of one landspout every year or two, according to meteorologists.

In all, Arkansas saw less tornadic action than usual. The state averages 33 tornadoes a year, said John Robinson, warning coordinator for the National Weather Service in North Little Rock.

In 2011, meteorologists tracked 75 tornadoes in the state.

The fewer than average number of tornadoes was attributed to the drought, which robbed potential tornadoforming storms of moisture, Robinson said.

“Whenever we had a possible episode come through, there wasn’t enough moisture for it to draw from,” he said. “A system that could set up for tornadoes would come through and leave. I think if we had a little bit more moisture then, we’d have seen a lot more tornadoes.

“That was one good thing about the drought,” he said.

Called a “flash drought,” conditions deteriorated rapidly in the state in July.

On July 10, only 3 percent of Arkansas - a five-county area around Faulkner County - was considered in exceptional drought, meaning the area was more than 9 inches deficient of normal rainfall for the past 30 days.

A month later, 54 percent of the state was considered in exceptional drought, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Neb.

From April through July, it was the driest period in Arkansas’ history, breaking a record set in 1896. The state saw an average rainfall total of 9.03 inches for the four months. During the same four-month period in 1896, an average of 10.7 inches fell.

The Fourche Lafave River near Gravelly dropped to 0.28 feet in August, breaking the low-water record set in western Yell County in 1939.

“There’s not really a river there anymore,” Joe Epperson, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers operations manager, had said of the Fourche Lafave River then.

With that dryness came heat. Temperatures reached 100 degrees or above for 25 consecutive days in Russellville in July and August.

Conditions eased when the remnants of Hurricane Isaac, a Category 1 storm that hit the coast of Louisiana on Aug. 28, chugged through Arkansas two days later.

White Hall in Jefferson County saw 10.7 inches of rain in a 48-hour period during the storm’s wrath, and Augusta in Woodruff County received 8.2 inches of rain.

According to the drought monitor, after Isaac’s rains soaked much of Arkansas, 12.4 percent of the state remained in an exceptional drought in the first week of September,compared with 45.5 percent a week earlier.

Capping off the year, a Christmas night storm crippled much of the state with snow and ice.

Jessieville in Garland County measured 15 inches of snowfall, and Hoxie in Lawrence County saw 14 inches. The weather service issued a blizzard warning for northeast Arkansas - the first time its done so in at least 40 years, meteorologists recalled.

More than 265,000 homes and businesses lost power, and some are ringing in the new year still in the dark.

But the snow storm did bring a small benefit.

“The snow, ice and rain all have impacts on the drought. One good thing is the melting will replenish the moisture we need,” said Karen Hatfield, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Tulsa.

“It was a year of below averages,” added Matthew Clay, a National Weather Service meteorologist in North Little Rock.

“We had a below average number of tornadoes and a below average of precipitation,” he said. “The jet stream didn’t dip as far into the south as average, so many of the stronger frontal systems stayed north.

“The only thing extreme and above average was the 100-degree temperatures.”

He forecasts this year to begin with a clearing trend. The sun should peak out later today, and fairly sunny skies should prevail for the rest of the week.

“We should begin the new year pretty well,” he said. “But who knows what we’ll see later this year.”

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 01/01/2013