Second Round of Severe Weather Threatens Plains and Midwest as Regions Still Recover

As regions that recently suffered through a destructive tornado outbreak catch their breath, more severe weather is set to hit the Plains and Midwest. While Monday’s threat will be limited to areas in the Deep South and along the Gulf Coast, Tuesday and Wednesday are expected to bring stormy conditions back to locations still dealing with recovery efforts from last week’s extreme weather events. Although the severity of these upcoming thunderstorms is not predicted to match that seen over the weekend, it may cause disruptions as heavy rainfall combines with wind gusts and large hailstones. The FOX Forecast Center attributes Tuesday’s severe weather threat to a dip in the jet stream moving across northern Rockies, which will mix low-level moisture from southern Plains areas into central regions by evening. Although strong tornadoes are less likely this time around due to the absence of richer moistures further northward, clusters of intense thunderstorms may still form over eastern Nebraska and Iowa where significant damage was inflicted last Friday. The main threats for these storms appear to be damaging winds and large hailstones with some potential tornado activity also forecast. Heavy rainfall is predicted across areas that do not need more active weather, as recovery operations continue alongside surveys by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center (SPC). As of Monday morning, over 5.6 million people in South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri have been placed under a Level 2 out of five severe thunderstorm risk scale by the SPC. The threat returns to these regions on Wednesday but will be centered further west across southern Nebraska, central Kansas, western Oklahoma, and North Texas with around two million individuals currently listed at level 2 alert, including major cities like Wichita, Topeka, Salina, Manhattan in Kansas as well as Enid and Woodward in Oklahoma. Additionally, flash flooding is predicted to occur alongside these storms, with the FOX Forecast Center predicting an extra two-to-three inches of rainfall across America’s heartland starting Wednesday.