AccuWeather's Jon Porter breaks down the threat for severe weather that will travel from the Plains into the Midwest from April 15-16.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00We are tracking this. We're also tracking some severe weather in the Midwest as well, so we want
00:03to talk to, or in the mid-Atlantic I should say as well, we're going to talk to AccuWeather chief
00:07meteorologist John Porter from our Severe Weather Center in Wichita. So John, it's been a very active
00:12day in Virginia to this point, but we also have severe weather that we're more concerned about
00:16into the evening in the plains. That's right, Jeff. It's been a busy day for our team of storm
00:23warning meteorologists here at our AccuWeather Severe Weather Center in Wichita, Kansas.
00:28First, we've been focused in the mid-Atlantic, as you mentioned, Washington, D.C. Earlier with
00:32some gusty showers and thunderstorms, that's now making its way into northern Virginia.
00:37Look out, the damaging wind threat can be increasing here. That may bring down some
00:41trees and power lines out toward Richmond here over the next couple of hours. And then as you
00:46mentioned, we're going to shift west on our big interactive map here, and notice there's not a
00:51lot going on right now across the plains, but that is going to change here over the coming hours as
00:57a strong storm system makes its way out from the western part of the United States and out east
01:02into the plains. And John, as we take a look at the overall risk map for this storm, we have some
01:09areas highlighted with a moderate risk. That's two out of four on the AccuWeather Threat Level Index.
01:13So where are you most concerned this evening about severe storms, and where do we expect to see that
01:18evolve into the day tomorrow? Well, the greatest risk area appears to us to be across portions
01:25of Nebraska, also parts of Kansas as well, and that will increase here over the next couple of
01:32hours. Further south from Oklahoma into portions of northern Texas, we can also be dealing with
01:38large hail, damaging wind, and the risk for some isolated tornadoes as well. The challenge with
01:43this setup is that there's not going to be necessarily a lot of coverage of these storms,
01:48but any of the storms that do develop can become quite intense and bring a wide variety of severe
01:53weather risks. So a great time to download the AccuWeather app and turn on push notifications.
01:58You can see that area of greatest concern, sort of two different areas here as we make our way
02:02through the overnight hours, and this risk is going to continue into the overnight hours as well.
02:07So those kinds of storms happening after dark are particularly dangerous. And John, we have a big
02:12dewpoint gradient here with the dry line marching into the plains. Huge contrast between the moisture
02:18and the very dry air. Sure is, that's what's one of the things that's fueling this particular setup,
02:26and that strong boundary between that much drier air arriving from the west,
02:30that's the dry line. Along that is where we're going to see this potential for
02:35explosive thunderstorm development over the coming hours. And John, into the day then tomorrow,
02:40the storms march into the midwest here, so we're very concerned about a slightly higher population
02:44area. That's right, so look out in that area anywhere from southern and eastern Iowa, down
02:52into portions of Missouri, St. Louis, and getting over towards Chicago as we head into tomorrow night.
02:59All right John, thank you so much for that report there, and we'll look forward to checking back
03:03in with you throughout the next couple of days here as more severe weather threats evolve
03:07into more of the nation.