Violent Storms Aim for Heartland Wednesday, ThursdayWhile not the most intense outbreak of the spring in light of the tornadoes in the South recently, violent storms into Thursday will target part of tornado alley.
Powerful thunderstorms will target part of Tornado Alley into Thursday, but the most and the worst of the storms will tend to ride north and west of areas hit the hardest by tornadoes a couple of weeks ago.
Areas from Texas to Illinois and southern Wisconsin will be the primary focus of the storms with this severe weather outbreak that will include large hail, damaging straight-line wind gusts and a couple of handfuls of tornadoes.
Meteorologist Katie Storbeck described the nature of Tuesday's severe weather threat over the southern Plains in "Powerful Thunderstorms to Target Texas, Oklahoma."
Ms. Storbeck also describes the risk of severe weather in part of the Ohio Valley and the Appalachians Tuesday evening.
The violent storm threat zone will expand from Texas reaching southern Minnesota and southern Wisconsin by Wednesday evening.
The zone of severe thunderstorms will bow eastward as a storm system lifts northward across the Plains and dry air sweeps in from the west.
During Thursday, the zone of powerful thunderstorms will reach as far east as western Kentucky and northeastern Louisiana.
As Cory Mottice described in "Tornadoes Return Midweek," the storms will reach some areas currently being subjected to flooding.
During the past week or so, weather systems moving along through the Midwest have not had access to Gulf of Mexico moisture, which is a key ingredient for the nastiest of thunderstorms known as supercells.
These supercells are the main producers of tornadoes.
During the severe weather outbreak this week, the Gulf of Mexico will be open and will add in the necessary ingredient for the violent storms.
While AccuWeather.com meteorologists do not expect anything close to the number of tornadoes associated with the late-April outbreak, even one tornado hitting a populated area can lead to many casualties and widespread destruction.
This outbreak has the potential to produce a couple dozen or so tornadoes, a few of which could be strong, and should be taken seriously.
Accuweather