HOUSTON — A daily streak of tracking severe weather in the U.S. is stretching into its second week this weekend as storms now focus their attention in the southern Plains and the mid-Mississippi Valley.
The Southern Plains will see the severe weather risk first as a strong but broad area of low pressure swirls nearby.
NOAA‘s Storm Prediction Center has a swath of coastal southeastern Texas, including the Houston and Corpus Christi areas, under a level 2 of 5 risk for severe weather Saturday. Thunderstorms will push in from the west around midday Saturday and linger into Saturday evening.
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The greatest threats from severe thunderstorms here are damaging wind gusts over 60 mph and large hail, though an isolated tornado can’t be ruled out.
Farther north, a Level 2 severe weather risk is in place for a swatch of central Iowa into northwestern Illinois, covering Des Moines, Iowa and Peoria, Illinois.
Again, damaging wind gusts over 60 mph and large hail over 2 inches in diameter are the primary threats though the risk of a few tornadoes is higher here than in the Texas zone.
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Supercells are expected to form in the mid-late Saturday afternoon time frame, with thunderstorms eventually congealing into a line and presenting more of a damaging wind threat as the storms progress through Saturday evening into Saturday night.
The severe weather threats continue into Sunday for Mother’s Day — this time making for a stormy day in the Ohio Valley.
Nashville and Chattanooga in Tennessee, Louisville, Kentucky and Springfield, Illinois are in the severe weather risk zone, though overall, the risk is low — just a level 1 on the SPC severe weather risk scale.
But some storms that fire Sunday afternoon may bring isolated large hailstones of 2 inches in diameter and wind gusts over 60 mph.