A stretch of the United States from San Antonio to Pittsburgh is facing the threat of heavy rain and severe storms this weekend as a sprawling system continues to linger, bringing with it the risks of flooding, hail, damaging winds and a few tornadoes.
Here’s what to expect:
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The most severe storms are likely in Texas and Oklahoma on Saturday, bringing large hail and potentially tornadoes by the evening.
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Excessive rain will bring a flash-flood risk to much of Oklahoma and Missouri, as well as parts of Northeast Texas and Arkansas.
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Through the weekend, people in a more widespread area could see heavy amounts of rain as the system moves very slowly toward the east.
Rain is expected to linger.
One of the main concerns with this system, which began affecting this part of the country late Thursday, is its slow pace, which may lead thunderstorms to repeatedly break out over the same regions, increasing the risk of flash flooding.
“It’s not going to make east progress very quickly,” said Rich Thompson, a meteorologist with the Storm Prediction Center. “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 an area from Northeast Texas to parts of the Midwest as areas likely to receive high rainfall totals through the weekend, with the biggest threat over eastern Oklahoma, Northwest Arkansas and much of Missouri.
“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 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, Southeast 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.
Spring storm season is underway.
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 Northeast Texas, North Louisiana, Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma and southern Missouri.
Nazaneen Ghaffar is a Times reporter on the Weather team.
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