Severe storms set to erupt Saturday with tornado danger
Outdoor events, including football games, could be disrupted this weekend across the Mississippi Valley as severe thunderstorms threaten with lightning, damaging winds and hail into the weekend.
With the free AccuWeather app, you have access to minute-by-minute forecasting, lightning notifications and map radar, which can all help you prepare for severe weather heading toward your area.
The risk for severe weather is expected to peak this weekend as a new storm develops over the Mississippi Valley, strengthens and tracks toward the Great Lakes region. Some of the severe thunderstorms on Saturday may produce tornadoes, according to AccuWeather meteorologists.
As the storm gathers moisture from the Gulf and moves northeast across the Mississippi Valley on Saturday afternoon and evening, thunderstorms are expected to develop and become severe from northeastern Texas and northern Louisiana to central Illinois and Indiana.
Within this area, a more concentrated zone of severe thunderstorms is expected along with a heightened risk for a few tornadoes from central Arkansas to southeastern Missouri and southwestern Illinois.
St. Louis, Little Rock, Arkansas, and Memphis, Tennessee, are major cities within AccuWeather's moderate to severe weather risk zone.
If the storms organize into a solid line of severe weather, there will be a greater risk for the storms to progress into the middle portions of Tennessee and Kentucky, as well as in northern Alabama later at night.
Lightning from any thunderstorm could cause delays at football games, golf courses or other outdoor events across the Mississippi Valley on Saturday.
In the northern part of this area, strong wind gusts may occur even without thunder or lightning.
On Sunday, the greatest risk for severe thunderstorms will stretch from the central part of the Appalachians to southern Ontario. As the storms approach Atlanta during the afternoon and potentially hold together into the evening near Charlotte, flight delays may increase during one of the busiest travel times of the weekend.
Especially across the northern extent of the risk, on Sunday, strong wind gusts may occur even in the absence of thunder and lightning in many cases from Kentucky to Ohio and Michigan, eastward to West Virginia, Pennsylvania and western New York.
Strong, potentially damaging wind gusts in any storm through Sunday may be brief—lasting only a few minutes—but could still cause disruption.
Blustery conditions are expected to persist from parts of the Midwest to the Appalachians through early next week.
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