Forecasters are warning of large hail, damaging winds and flash flooding in areas from Texas to upstate New York, as a dangerous storm system continues to tear across central and eastern parts of the United States.
The National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center has placed parts of western Texas and southwestern Oklahoma, as well as stretches of the Ohio Valley, western Pennsylvania and upstate New York, under an “enhanced” risk of severe weather on Tuesday, the third level of its five-level classification system.
Forecasters warned that southern areas faced the threat of hail and isolated tornadoes, while the Northern United States, including the Great Lakes, was at risk of damaging winds.
The Storm Prediction Center warned that hailstones larger than baseballs could fall in northwest Texas on Tuesday, accompanied by wind gusts of up to 75 miles per hour. The threat of severe weather was expected to grow stronger through the day.
Tornadoes were also possible in parts of Texas and Oklahoma, the Ohio Valley and upstate New York. But Matt Mosier, a lead forecaster at the Storm Prediction Center, said that they were not expected to be the main hazard.
Tuesday’s severe weather threats follow a tense Monday in the Upper Midwest, where areas of Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin had been placed under a higher risk of tornadoes, at the fourth level in the Weather Service’s classification system. In the end, just two were reported in Minnesota and Wisconsin, a quieter outcome that forecasters attributed to thunderstorms remaining along the cold front associated with the storm system.
“When that occurs, it makes it less likely to produce a tornado and more likely to produce hail and damaging winds,” Mr. Mosier said.
Still, areas of Oklahoma saw teacup-sized hail, while wind gusts of as high as 68 m.p.h. were recorded in Kansas.
Another concern on Tuesday is rain: Northeast Texas, central Oklahoma and western Arkansas were under moderate risk of flash flooding through Thursday, with the Weather Service warning of “locally catastrophic flooding” in parts of southwest Oklahoma as rain falls on already recently soaked grounds.
“When you get a stalled cold front like that and there’s a lot of moisture around, it’s kind of a recipe for numerous rounds of rain and storms,” Mr. Mosier said.
The storm is expected to move eastward by the weekend, with high pressure bringing a period of calmer weather. But any respite may be short-lived, as another storm system is expected to develop over the western United States as soon as Saturday.
“It’s just that time of year,” Mr. Mosier said. “We don’t really go a very long period of time without some sort of system coming through again.”
Nazaneen Ghaffar is a Times reporter on the Weather team.
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