Much of the central United States, from Texas through Missouri and up into the Great Lakes region, will again be under the threat of severe weather on Wednesday, with the potential for powerful winds, large hail and even a few tornadoes.
The risk is highest in an area that includes parts of southern Michigan, northwest Ohio, most of Indiana, Southern Illinois and southern Missouri. There’s a chance for more isolated severe storms in the Southern Plains.
An area along the East Coast from Washington to just south of New York could also see heavy rain and strong thunderstorms.
“The biggest threat for the entire risk area is damaging winds of up to 60 to 70 miles per hour,” said Andrew Lyons, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center. Winds of this speed can knock over trees.
Severe weather has persisted across the region all week, but the storms on Wednesday were likely to be less organized and more scattered than those that had been forecast on Tuesday, Mr. Lyons said.
Strong thunderstorms bringing a range of threats are typical across the central and eastern United States for this time of year. Flash flooding in San Antonio last week left at least 13 people dead, and a toddler and at least five other people were killed in West Virginia last weekend.
The area at risk for tornadoes on Wednesday includes Chicago, but the threat is most likely away from the city and east of Lake Michigan, Mr. Lyons said. St. Louis, which experienced a deadly tornado outbreak last month, is also under some risk, but the conditions are expected to be different and far less severe than what they were then, he said.
The storms will also bring a chance of heavy rain that could lead to flash flooding to portions of the South and Midwest, especially a large section of Michigan.
On Thursday, the threat of thunderstorms is expected to lessen overall but will shift east into the Mid-Atlantic States and southern New England.
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Amy Graff is a Times reporter covering weather, wildfires and earthquakes.
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