A dangerous severe weather threat is back in the Lower 48 as the Midwest braces for an end-of-the-week wrecker.
The FOX Forecast Center said 72 million Americans are at risk for severe weather Friday with storms capable of large hail, damaging wind gusts, and perhaps a tornado or two across portions of the Middle Mississippi Valley and Upper Midwest.
As high pressure builds across the Southern Plains and Southwest, disturbances will move around the ridge, helping to spark storms.
“There is going to be a lower-end tornado threat for Chicago down into Quincy,” FOX Weather meteorologist Jason Frazer said. “Then we could see some straight-line winds with this, some damaging winds in excess of about 50 miles per hour.”
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While a significant severe weather event is unlikely at this time, it does appear enough shear will be in place to support severe storms during the afternoon and evening, the FOX Forecast Center said. Downpours from these storms could also lead to brief flash flooding.
More than 31 million Americans in 9 states are under a level 2 out of 5 on the Storm Prediction Center’s thunderstorm risk scale, with major cities such as Chicago, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Minneapolis and St. Louis seeing an increased risk of experiencing severe thunderstorms.
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The FOX Forecast Center is tracking a few active Severe Thunderstorm Warnings in Illinois on Friday morning.
These ongoing band of thunderstorms may continue to pose a threat of locally damaging to isolated severe gusts, as it moves southeastward through the reminder of the morning, south of the northern warm front, the SPC said.
If it feels like there has been frequent severe weather in the forecast, it’s because there has been.
There’s no letup coming for the seemingly endless severe storm threats. Round-after-round of severe weather is expected over the next few days.
On Saturday, the focus will stretch from the heartland to the Northeast. On Sunday, we reset, and a disturbance will produce severe weather in the Central U.S. That threat area shifts east to the Ohio Valley on Monday.
While severe weather in summer isn’t unusual, getting it day-after-day is the result of a unique pattern, the FOX Forecast Center said.