While many communities are picking up the pieces from many severe weather outbreaks and tornadoes, it appears yet another severe weather outbreak will blossom at the end of the week. A very active weather pattern will continue to produce waves of severe weather in the foreseeable future and several areas that saw severe storms and tornadoes in recent days will see them again Friday and likely again in the days and weeks beyond.
According to the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center, potentially intense and widespread severe thunderstorms are expected Friday afternoon into the overnight hours across portions of the Middle Mississippi Valley and Mid-South vicinity, eastward to the Lower Ohio and Tennessee Valleys. Damaging gusts and tornadoes will be the main hazards with this activity.
An intense mid/upper trough is forecast to eject eastward across the Plains to the central U.S. on Friday. Intense deep-layer southwesterly flow will accompany this system, with a substantial jet stream expanding over much of the Midwest. As the upper trough deepens during the afternoon and evening, a strong southwesterly low-level jet will overspread much of the area identified as an enhanced risk zone for severe weather.
According to the Storm Prediction Center, these flow fields will favor a fast-moving squall line shifting across the Mid-Mississippi Valley/Mid-South toward the Lower Ohio and Tennessee Valleys. Due to forecast intense flow fields, a threat for damaging gusts will will also persist from Missouri and Iowa into the Lower Ohio Valley. Supercell development is possible too; fast moving storms may produce possibly significant damaging gusts and tornadoes.
Further south into the Mid-South, large-scale ascent will be somewhat weaker further removed from the upper trough. However, flow fields will remain intense and a mixed mode of supercells and linear convection is expected. The Storm Prediction Center is warning that all severe hazards, such as damaging gusts, tornadoes and isolated hail, are expected by late afternoon into the evening hours.
