Power outages and dangerous road conditions occurred in southern Arkansas as a winter storm made its presence felt early Friday, January 10, 2025.

After sunset, all of the winter weather hit the Magnolia area – rain, freezing rain, sleet and snow. Large snowflakes fell on Magnolia around 10 p.m. Thursday, but most of the snow was replaced by freezing rain.

Nighttime temperatures in the Magnolia area remained stubbornly around 32 degrees — too warm for snow, but just right for cold or freezing rain.

The freezing rain caused tree branches and power lines to collapse across the region. As of 4:30 a.m. Friday, Entergy Corporation reported that about 5,500 of its customers live in Columbia and Union counties.

Most of Magnolia had power, but most southern and eastern parts of Columbia County did not. Many of the outages began between 10 and 11 p.m., with power not expected to be restored until late Friday morning.

Taylor, Bussey, Shaman, Calhoun, Free Hope, Lydesdale, Medlock and Lamartine were among the communities without power. Southern Arkansas University and the Mulerider Trail had no power.

More than 1,500 Entergy customers in Union County were without service. Most of those were east of El Dorado and along US 82 from the El Dorado city limits to Arkansas 172. Ouachita Electric Cooperation reported about 736 outages. Most of these were between Bearden and Sparkman. Southwest Arkansas Electric Cooperative reported 1,678 outages, most of them in rural Miller County south of U.S. 82.

Although there was at least four inches of snow across much of Entergy Arkansas’ service area, nearly all of Entergy Arkansas’ power outages occurred in Columbia and Union counties.

Readers of the Magnolia Reporter page on Facebook reported on the conditions in their neighborhood. CLICK HERE to visit the Facebook page and view these reports.

magnoliareporter.com took a quick trip through Magnolia around 3 a.m. to several areas where power outages were reported. Power lines were down and arcing on Olive Street near Cooper Street and on East Greene near the Lakewood branch of Peoples Bank.

Many trees were covered or weighed down with ice. In the northeast quadrant of the city, several tree branches were down.

All schools in the region have canceled classes for Friday. Most were also closed Thursday due to the storm’s arrival.

CLICK HERE to view magnoliareporter.com’s list of cancellations and closures.

Magnolia police and fire departments responded to calls from citizens about arcing on power lines, exploding electrical transformers and downed trees or large branches.

The Arkansas Department of Transportation’s iDriveArkansas website reported that there were patches of ice on state highways in Columbia County, but they were mostly clear. The same was true for most of southern Arkansas south of a line from Texarkana through Arkadelphia and Rison to Dumas. North of this line, most roads were covered in snow.

Snow generally fell north of a line from the Ark-La-Tex border through Smackover, Monticello and Arkansas City. Snow totals rose to 6 inches or more in an area bounded by Mena, Hot Springs, Little Rock, Searcy, Mountain View, Harrison and Fort Smith.

Light to moderate showers moved west to east across the Four State Region and conditions are expected to clear around dawn Friday. The forecast high for Friday is around 37, with an overnight low around 18.

This is a developing story. Stay tuned to magnoliareporter.com for more details later.

CLICK HERE to view the magnoliareporter.com weather page.