Weeklong Plains Severe Outbreak Hype

If you've been watching The SPC [JessePedia] Risk maps today (shown below), your severe weather interest was probably piqued. A large severe weather outbreak is forecast in the Plains for several days in a row, perhaps a week.

Yes, chatter is high today in the AccuWeather building, and also out in our Wichita Office, which I visited in January and you can trust me: these people eat, sleep and breathe severe weather because they're in Tornado Alley. What they say is this:

In addition to the widespread severe weather likely in the Plains from Canada to Mexico midweek, the severe weather will continue through the weekend and could get extreme on Friday night. Why? The NMM Forecast Model's current 500mb forecast for 7 PM Central Friday looks hauntingly familar to the map on May 3, 2003, when a week-long tornado outbreak occurred, dropping over 400 twisters, including an F4 tornado in Kansas City metro.

Also worrisome, from a flooding standpoint, is the amount of rain already received in the past 10 days in parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas (up to 6 inches):

And the amount they are expected to receive over the next week (up to 8 inches):