Midwest Starting The Week With Severe Storms

A dangerous weather weekend and start to the upcoming week is ahead across the Plains and Midwest with significant threats of tornadoes, hail and damaging winds through Tuesday.

Here is our latest forecast for each day of this latest siege of severe weather.

(MORE: Severe Weather Safety Tips)

Happening Now

Very large hail, a few tornadoes, damaging winds and some flooding are possible from the Central Plains into the Arklatex region as storms slide southeastward.

Any active tornado watches are red polygons, while any severe thunderstorm watches will be yellow polygons. Below is the latest radar.

Sunday

The threat of supercell thunderstorms is in play in the Central and Southern Plains, especially in parts of Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri.

With enough warm, humid air and strong wind shear in place, these supercells could spawn strong tornadoes, in addition to very large hail and damaging wind gusts. Cities like Kansas City and Oklahoma City need to be on alert.

A lower severe storm threat could impact cities like Dallas, San Antonio and Austin with large hail and damaging winds.

Monday

On Monday, this higher severe threat could spread to the Mississippi Valley and lower Ohio Valley. Another day of supercells could spawn strong tornadoes for parts of Iowa, Missouri and Illinois. A few long-track, particularly dangerous, tornadoes are possible.

Places like St. Louis, Kansas City, Little Rock, Nashville, Indianapolis, Chicago and Des Moines should all be on alert.

Tuesday

While it is still far out, the lingering frontal boundary can bring some severe storms across some of the Gulf Coast states into Tuesday. The greatest threat stretches from northeastern Texas to Kentucky. Cities like Memphis, Little Rock, Shreveport and Huntsville need to be watching the weather carefully.

Flood Threat

This stormy pattern will bring more periods of rain to parts of the western Great Lakes either still experiencing flooding or where ground is already saturated from the deluges both last week and earlier this spring.

While we don’t anticipate the magnitude of rainfall we saw last week, over an inch of additional rain is a good bet in much of the Midwest through Monday. That could lead to at least isolated additional flash flooding and could slow the fall of rivers still in flood.

Locally flooding rain is also possible through Monday from parts of Missouri and Kansas into Arkansas and the mid-South region, even though some of these areas are in extreme drought.

Beware of flooded roads, especially at night when you may not recognize them as fast. Never attempt to drive through a flooded road. Turn around, instead.

(MORE: Flash Flood Safety Tips)

Recap

Thursday brought over 20 tornado reports from Oklahoma to Iowa, as well as over 160 damaging wind and hail reports combined.

On Thursday evening, a rare tornado emergency was issued for the storm that tore through Enid, Oklahoma and the nearby Vance Air Force Base, warning of catastrophic damage and threat to life. The resulting tornado was rated EF4 with winds of 170-175 mph. It was the first EF4 in Garfield County, Oklahoma, since April 26, 1991. There were 10 injuries from this tornado.

There were five other tornadoes reported from the National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma.

The NWS office in Norman noted it was only the ninth time the office has issued a tornado emergency.

(MORE: Different Types Of Tornado Warnings)

There was also a gust of 107 mph at Vance Air Force Base, Oklahoma. The most impressive hail report was a report of 4 inches in diameter, or softball-sized hail, in Marion, Kansas.

As forecasted, Friday was less impactful. There was only one tornado report in Kiowa, Oklahoma. There was more than 75 damaging wind and large hail reports combined. Below is the storm reports of the latest event.

Saturday brought more intense storms, and roughly a dozen tornado reports, mainly across Texas and Oklahoma. In Alpine, Arkansas, there was a hail stone recovered that was between 4-5 inches in diameter. Other reports of hail the size of tennis balls and hen eggs were reported across Kansas and Texas.

Last Week’s Siege

The early-week breather was certainly welcomed after a busy stretch last week. Notice a lot of similarities to the reports from the April 13 – 17 map below to the map above with the latest storm reports.

Last Friday alone, there were 96 tornado reports among the over 500 severe weather reports.

(MORE: How April’s Severe Weather Has Been Weird)

In all, there were over 1,300 reports of severe weather in the U.S. from last Monday through last Friday, including 154 reports of tornadoes, 532 reports of hail and 642 reports of thunderstorm wind damage or high wind gusts.

As you can see, some of the same areas that are under the risk of severe weather ahead are areas that have already been hit hard by severe weather last week.

Make sure you have multiple ways to receive alerts, should severe weather strike.

Jennifer Gray is a weather and climate writer for weather.com. She has been covering some of the world’s biggest weather and climate stories for the last two decades.

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