Tornado Watches Expand in Northeast, South

This map from NOAA's Storm Prediction Center outlines today's weather hazards. The dark green area represents where severe thunderstorms are possible; there's an even greater chance in the yellow shaded region. Areas within the red lines are currently under a Tornado Watch while areas within blue lines are under a Severe Thunderstorm Watch. The current weather RADAR is also overlayed on this map. Image: SPC — This map from NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center outlines today’s weather hazards. The dark green area represents where severe thunderstorms are possible; there’s an even greater chance in the yellow shaded region. Areas within the red lines are currently under a Tornado Watch while areas within blue lines are under a Severe Thunderstorm Watch. The current weather RADAR is also overlayed on this map. Image: SPC

Severe weather is unfolding today from Texas to New Jersey, prompting the National Weather Service to issue many watches and warnings. Tornado Watches have now been expanded in the northeast, stretching from southern Indiana and northern Kentucky into southern Ohio, much of West Virginia, western Maryland, and western and central portions of Pennsylvania. Tornado Watches are also up for southeastern Texas and western Louisiana. A Severe Thunderstorm Watch has been issued for portions of Tennessee and Alabama.

Isolated to scattered severe thunderstorms are expected through tonight from the ArkLaTex and Lower Mississippi Valley northeastward through the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic. A surface cyclone in southeast Lower Michigan is moving northeastward across the lower Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence Valley; it will deepen in advance of an amplifying northern-stream shortwave trough over the upper Mississippi Valley. According to NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center (SPC), the warm sector of the cyclone is characterized by boundary-layer dewpoints in the low-mid 60s into Ohio, western Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Additional thunderstorm development is expected across southern Indiana, northern Kentucky, and into southern Ohio, West Virginia, , and western Pennsylvania, and storms will spread generally eastward within the warm sector through this evening.

There’s also a severe weather threat across southeast Texas into Mississippi and Alabama into tonight. Thunderstorms are ongoing along a surface trough approaching southeast Texas and additional convection extends northeastward along
a residual outflow/differential heating zone into the Ark-La-Miss area. Atmospheric conditions will support a continued increase in storm coverage and intensity this afternoon The SPC says that low-level hodographs will be long enough to justify the potential for a few tornadoes with embedded circulations and/or favorable storm mergers into the band of storms. Otherwise, wind damage will be the main threat with the line segments through tonight in this part of the country.