After a brief lull in spring storm activity in recent weeks, a large section of the central and eastern United States is gearing up for the return of severe weather. Beginning Thursday, a sprawling system is expected to deliver rounds of heavy rain and severe storms, bringing with them the threat of flooding, hail, damaging winds and a few tornadoes.
Here’s what to expect:
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This is a slow-moving system, which may lead to a lot of rain and flash flooding, especially in parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.
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Travel may be treacherous throughout the Easter weekend.
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More unsettled weather is expected through the rest of the month.
Round 1 is expected from Thursday into Friday.
The system is expected to develop over western Kansas by Thursday afternoon, bringing fast-moving winds high in the atmosphere, which, when combined with the warm, moisture-laden air from the Gulf of Mexico, will create instability — ripe for thunderstorms to break out.
By Thursday evening, severe storms are forecast to erupt across eastern Nebraska, northern Missouri, Iowa and southern Minnesota. From there, the system will move east toward the Great Lakes, bringing a wider threat of severe weather to the South by Friday.
The National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center has outlined a large risk area on Friday from northeast Texas through the middle part of the country and up to southeastern Wisconsin.
“Large hail and wind damage would be the primary threats,” said Rich Thompson, a meteorologist with the Storm Prediction Center. He added that a few tornadoes are also possible, though a major outbreak on the scale of the one earlier this month was not anticipated.
After that, rain is expected to linger.
One of the main concerns with this system is its slow pace, which may lead to thunderstorms repeatedly breaking out over the same regions, increasing the risk of flash flooding.
“It’s not going to make east progress very quickly,” Mr. Thompson said. “It’ll drag over at least two days in any one specific local area, bringing a thunderstorm threat for two, potentially three days in a row.”
The Weather Prediction Center highlighted northeastern Texas, Oklahoma, northwestern Arkansas, southern Missouri and southeastern Kansas as areas likely to receive high rainfall totals through the weekend.
“Some of this could be relatively impressive amounts, anywhere from four to six inches of rain, which could cause some local problems,” Mr. Thompson said. “There’s some chance, once we get several days into it, the flooding threat would come up.”
Some areas are still affected by earlier flooding.
This month, another slow-moving system unleashed torrential rainfall across parts of the Midwest and Southeast, along with a large outbreak of tornadoes, resulting in more than 20 deaths and considerable destruction.
Over the course of five days, some areas were inundated with as much as 15 inches of rain, setting off widespread flooding along the Mississippi River and connected waterways, especially the Ohio River basin across Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana.
These storms are expected to occur west of those areas, but they may still affect the rivers and streams in the Lower Mississippi and the Ohio Valley that remain flooded.
“Some of the river systems over the central U.S. feed into the Mississippi, so they could still exacerbate flooding issues” said Marty Rausch, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center.
The Weather Service office in Paducah, Ky., which issues forecasts for western Kentucky, southeastern Missouri, Southern Illinois and southwestern Indiana, said the risk of heavy rain and renewed flash flooding would increase from Friday, and most likely include localized flash flooding and rises along small creeks and streams.
Kentucky endured some of the most severe impacts from the earlier storms. In Frankfort, the Kentucky River surged to more than 48 feet, its second highest-level on record, destroying dozens of homes.
“We’re accustomed to periodic flooding,” said Layne Wilkerson, the mayor of Frankfort. “But this was different. No one had ever seen anything like this.” In his four years as mayor, he said, there have already been three major floods in the city.
Travel may be difficult through the weekend.
This new round of storms could also affect Easter holiday weekend plans. The Storm Prediction Center warned that areas from Texas and Arkansas, through Kentucky and up into Maryland and western Pennsylvania were expected to see severe weather as the storm moves east this weekend. On Sunday, storms are expected in northeast Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, southern Missouri and western portions of Kentucky and Tennessee.
Peter Mullinax, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center, said that the unsettled weather pattern could continue beyond the Easter weekend.
“There’s still going to be an ongoing active weather pattern across the eastern two-thirds of the country,” he said.
According to the Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center’s outlook, precipitation levels are expected to remain above normal from the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic through the end of April, especially for northeastern Texas, northern Louisiana, Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma and southern Missouri.
Nazaneen Ghaffar is a Times reporter on the Weather team.
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