Severe thunderstorms, flood threat to persist across central, eastern US
Rounds of thunderstorms this week can bring damaging wind gusts, large hail, isolated tornadoes and flash flooding from the Plains to the East Coast.
An Illinois man captured the moment a tornado tore through his home in Effingham on June 17 while he sheltered inside. The tornado destroyed the house, but the resident was not injured, according to local officials.
An active June pattern that has unleashed severe thunderstorms and flooding across the central and eastern United States will continue through the week, keeping millions on alert for damaging weather from the Plains to the Atlantic coast.
While the Central states will face a nearly daily risk of severe thunderstorms through the week, the greatest concern in the East will come during the first half of the week as a storm tracks out of the nation's midsection.
At the same time, a cold front stretching from the mid-Atlantic to the South and back into the Plains will serve as an additional focus for thunderstorm development. Rounds of storms along and ahead of the front could enhance rainfall totals in some locations.
Flooding concerns may be especially heightened across portions of the South, where recent rainfall has already left soils saturated and waterways running high. Some of the same areas that experienced flooding rainfall this past week from thunderstorms and former Tropical Storm Arthur will once again face the risk of excessive rainfall. In these areas, it may take only a relatively modest amount of additional rain to trigger renewed flooding problems.
From Tuesday through the middle of the week, the center of the nation's severe weather activity will shift back toward the Plains.
Storm systems moving out of the Rockies and into the Plains will interact with warm, moisture-rich air, setting the stage for daily rounds of thunderstorms. While not every community will experience severe weather, the setup will support repeated opportunities for strong-to-severe storms across the region.
Both Tuesday and Wednesday are expected to feature similar risk areas, extending from eastern Colorado and New Mexico into portions of Nebraska, Wyoming, Kansas, the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, and into Missouri and Arkansas. The primary threats will be large hail, flooding, isolated tornadoes and damaging wind gusts, with some storms capable of producing winds approaching the AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 85 mph.
Locally severe storms may spread farther south and east into the lower Mississippi Valley and even parts of Alabama and the central Gulf Coast on Wednesday.
The severe weather threat is expected to expand somewhat Thursday as another round of storms develops across a broader portion of the Plains. The risk area is expected to stretch from northern Oklahoma northward into eastern Montana and Idaho.
Damaging wind gusts, large hail and flooding downpours will once again be the primary hazards as thunderstorms sweep across the region. Given the repeated nature of the storm pattern, localized flooding concerns may continue to increase in areas that receive multiple rounds of heavy rainfall throughout the week.
“The focus of severe thunderstorms will shift into the northern Plains and Midwest this weekend. Thunderstorms in this region will pose the risk of damaging winds, hail and even a few tornadoes," AccuWeather Meteorologist Alex Duffus said.
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