By AccuWeather senior meteorologist
Published Apr. 20, 2022 11:53 AM EDT | Updated Apr. 21, 2022 8:47 PM EDT
A new round of severe weather will ramp up over the central United States on Friday and continue into Saturday as a potent storm swings from the Rockies to the Canada border, AccuWeather meteorologists say. The severe weather will threaten several major cities located across the Heartland.
The large circulation around the storm will draw warm, moist air northward from the Gulf of Mexico, while strong winds from the storm system can add the energy needed for storms to become violent.
The same storm will be the latest to create blizzard conditions in parts of the Dakotas and Montana.
Much of Friday may tend to be quiet in terms of severe thunderstorms. However, as strong April sunshine heats the ground, thunderstorms will erupt and quickly turn severe during the late afternoon and evening hours, forecasters say.
The greatest threats from the severe weather from late Friday afternoon to Friday night will likely be from large hail and strong wind gusts, according to AccuWeather Meteorologist Randy Adkins.
As with any outbreak of severe weather, severe tornadoes could spin up and threaten to cause damage to properties.
"From late Friday to Friday evening, the best chance of a few tornadoes will be in portions of eastern Nebraska, southern and eastern South Dakota and western Iowa," AccuWeather Director of Forecast Operations Dan DePodwin said, adding, "this is where the greatest amount of twisting of winds in the atmosphere will be as well as a surge of warm and moist air at the same time."
Motorists should be prepared for changing weather conditions on their travels along interstates 29, 70, 80 and 90 on Friday evening. The storms may directly affect the cities of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Grand Island, Nebraska, and Salina, Kansas. Since the storms are likely to occur near sunset or after dark on Friday, there will be an added danger.
Farther south, there can be a couple of widely separated severe thunderstorms from the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles to eastern New Mexico, forecasters say. The timing of those storms will again be from Friday afternoon into the nighttime hours.
These storms will erupt along the leading edge of dry, desert air to the west and hot, humid air to the east where temperatures are forecast to surge into the 80s to near 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Just as farther to the north, the greatest threats from these isolated storms will be potentially damaging hail and winds.
On Saturday, the risk of severe thunderstorms will push farther to the east into an area with a larger population. Storms are predicted to rumble over the lower Plains, the upper portion of the Mississippi Valley and the western part of the Great Lakes. Even though the overall coverage of the anticipated severe weather may be less concentrated than Friday evening, the more dense population zone could increase the danger and damage potential.
All facets of severe weather will be possible on Saturday afternoon and evening. Meteorologists expect the storms to unleash anything from high winds and large hail to localized flash flooding and a few tornadoes. The major metro areas of Minneapolis; Des Moines, Iowa; Kansas City, Missouri; Topeka, Kansas; and Oklahoma City may be affected by a severe thunderstorm as a cold front approaches from the west.
The risk of severe weather is expected to diminish on Sunday and Monday as the cold front pushes slowly across the Great Lakes and the Ohio Valley. Still, a few storms can be locally heavy and gusty as they cross the Chicago, Indianapolis and Detroit metro areas.
Farther south, storms and moisture along the tail end of the front could be given a boost from an approaching disturbance in the jet stream. The disturbance can cause the front to stall and thunderstorms to repeat in several areas. Some locations from northern Texas to the southern portions of Missouri, Illinois and Indiana, as well as the western part of Kentucky, could be hit with heavy rainfall and locally severe thunderstorms late this weekend to early next week.
While portions of the South Central states have "cooled off" a bit from the weekly onslaught of severe weather during the late winter and start of the spring, there have been fewer severe weather days farther north over the Plains and Midwest.
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The most recent round of severe weather in the North Central region occurred on April 12, when about a dozen reports of tornadoes were accompanied by dozens of incidents of high winds and hail from Kansas to Minnesota.
As the spring progresses, severe weather events tend to expand farther to the north, west and east in the middle of the nation as warmth and moisture increase, forecasters say.
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