Central U.S. braces for back-to-back days of severe thunderstorms
A multi-day severe weather pattern will bring rounds of thunderstorms, hail, damaging winds, and flash flooding across the central U.S. this week into next.
AccuWeather Severe Weather Expert Guy Pearson warns of severe storms barreling through the central U.S. from late Sunday to Monday afternoon as they produce high winds, hail and isolated tornadoes.
Severe thunderstorms will be on the prowl over portions of the central United States nearly every day through at least Tuesday of next week, AccuWeather meteorologists warn. The Great Plains will bear the brunt of the stormy wrath.
A series of storm systems will roll out of the Rockies and track across the central U.S., tapping into rich Gulf moisture along the way—fueling rounds of thunderstorms as the week unfolds.
Outdoor recreation, construction and farming activities could be frequently disrupted, especially later in the day and during the evening hours, over parts of the Plains just about every day through Tuesday.
The storms will reset in many of the same areas each day. This means they will erupt in the afternoon, diminish late at night, then erupt again in the heat of the next afternoon. In rare cases, storms can survive the night and linger into the first thing the next morning.
Severe thunderstorms on Wednesday over the Plains states tallied at least 90 incidents, including more than 60 filtered reports of hail. Some of the storms produced hailstones the size of golf balls, tennis balls, and baseballs.
Hail, high winds, and tornadoes Thursday
Storms Thursday night behaved in a nearly carbon copy manner of Wednesday. Storms again blossomed late in the day along U.S. Route 385 from West Texas to eastern Colorado and then progress eastward Thursday night along the U.S. Route 83 and 183 zones of the southern and central Plains.
A report of "DVD-sized" hail, or 5.2 inches in diameter, was reported northeast of Lubbock, Texas, on Thursday. There are also numerous preliminary tornado reports from West Texas into the Oklahoma Panhandle from storms late Thursday afternoon into the evening.
Friday storms shift east; heavy rain, isolated severe thunderstorms
Widespread severe thunderstorms are likely to take a bit of a break from the High Plains on Friday as a somewhat stronger disturbance pushes across the Midwest. This will pull some dry air in across the central Plains, but focus Gulf moisture from the lower southern Plains to the middle Mississippi and Ohio valleys to the Great Lakes region.
Because of the vast amount of cloud cover anticipated in this zone, the intensity of most thunderstorms is likely to be below severe levels. However, some thunderstorms could still bring flooding downpours, gusty winds and hail. A few isolated severe thunderstorms can still develop in this vast area.
Plains storms resume this weekend
Following possible severe thunderstorms Friday night over parts of Oklahoma and northeastern Texas, the risk of violent weather shifts back to the west on Saturday afternoon.
Areas from west-central and northwestern Texas to Oklahoma may be the prime zones for a complex of severe thunderstorms from Saturday to Saturday night. If storms remain more scattered, parts of western Kansas and eastern Colorado could also see activity.
The storms on Saturday will pack damaging hail and high winds, along with the potential for flash flooding.
On Sunday, the risk of severe weather is likely to jump hundreds of miles farther to the north.
Storms are expected to fire up across the Dakotas, eastern Wyoming, Nebraska and Minnesota bringing threats of hail, high wind gusts and flash flooding.
Severe storms to push eastward early next week
As a stronger storm system pushes east of the Rockies early next week, the potential for a multiple-day outbreak of severe weather will increase over the Central states.
The storms are likely to organize along an advancing cold front from the eastern part of the Dakotas, Minnesota and western Wisconsin to west-central Texas on Monday. Iowa and southern Minnesota could be in the crosshairs of a moderate risk of severe weather that includes tornadoes.
All modes of severe weather--hail, high winds and a few tornadoes--are possible from Monday to Tuesday as the front advances eastward from the Plains to the Great Lakes and the Ohio and Mississippi valleys.
There is the potential for severe thunderstorms to extend to parts of the Northeast and the lower portion of the Mississippi Valley next Wednesday.
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