Dangerous storms to slam central US to mid-Atlantic over July Fourth holiday weekend
At least one complex of severe thunderstorms could form across the central United States this week, AccuWeather forecasters say. The main threats include large hail, isolated tornadoes, flash flooding and damaging wind gusts.
Severe weather will continue to cause disruptions and threaten lives and property across portions of the central and eastern United States during the extended July Fourth weekend, AccuWeather meteorologists warn.
The ongoing severe weather threat follows a derecho that blasted areas from Nebraska and Iowa to central Illinois and southern Indiana on Thursday. The powerful complex of thunderstorms, which rolled along for approximately 450 miles, produced several hundred incidents of damaging winds and torrential rain, similar to that of a hurricane, tossing trucks and flattening corn fields with wind gusts as high as 100 mph.
A slow-moving storm system will shift from the central Plains to the Midwest this weekend and reach the Northeast early this week. It will trigger thunderstorms and severe weather on its southern and eastern flank, and to the north, a more persistent rain lasting several hours may curtail some outdoor plans.
Severe storm threat to continue on Sunday
On Sunday, as the storm system continues to inch eastward, the severe weather threat will mainly encompass much of Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware and Maryland, as well as portions of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and New Jersey. Severe weather can dive as far south as northern Alabama and Georgia. The western extent of the severe weather risk will even reach portions of Arkansas and Missouri.
Some of the strongest storms on Sunday will pack wind gusts between 60 and 70 mph, hail and flooding downpours. An AccuWeather Local StormMax™ wind gust to 90 mph is possible. Occasionally severe thunderstorms can spawn a tornado, but tornadoes through the weekend are likely to be very few in number.
Patches of steady, heavy rain will occur near and north of the edge of the thunderstorms along the track of the storm system. Areas most likely to experience a few hours of steady rain will extend from portions of Iowa, northern Illinois and southern Michigan early this weekend to southern Michigan, northern Ohio, northern Pennsylvania and western New York on Sunday and finally, eastern upstate New York to northern New England on Monday. The rain may persist for several hours in the Midwest into early this week, putting a damper on holiday weekend plans.
The city of Chicago was hit with flooding downpours on Sunday morning. It is estimated that 1-3 inches of rain has already fallen and was triggering street flooding. NASCAR has two races scheduled for the downtown area on Sunday. Heavy rain and the risk of flooding may persist through the afternoon.
Severe weather threat to reach I-95 on Monday
On Monday, the risk of severe weather will tend to focus on the mid-Atlantic's Interstate 95 corridor as well as the beaches in the region. The major metro areas from New York City to Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Richmond, Virginia, and Raleigh, North Carolina, may have to deal with at least one severe storm into the evening hours.
"Monday's storms could pack a punch in the mid-Atlantic region," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dave Dombek said.
Any downpour or storm right at the beach during the daytime may be brief, but flooding downpours and damaging wind gusts as little as a few miles inland can lead to travel delays. The severe storms from the interior would likely push toward the beaches in the evening as the sea breeze diminishes.
The risk for severe thunderstorms will also stretch westward through interior portions of the Southeast, and downpours, hail and damaging wind gusts may extend from South Carolina toward the Mississippi-Arkansas border.
Storms may pester lower mid-Atlatic and South on Independence Day
Because the forward speed of the overall storm system is slow, there may still be locally severe thunderstorm activity to contend with from near Delaware Bay to the lower Mississippi Valley on Independence Day.
Forecasters strongly recommend that people on the road or spending time outdoors through the Fourth of July keep an eye on the sky and have the means to receive weather watches and warnings due to the potential for changing weather conditions. In some communities, the storms may not only produce frequent dangerous lightning strikes but also knock down trees, trigger power outages and cause minor property damage.
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