After parts of the Great Lakes region waded through round one of severe thunderstorms Wednesday night into early Thursday, round two now lies in wait for Thursday afternoon through the overnight, promising a renewed threat of severe weather.
Large hail, isolated tornadoes and damaging wind gusts of 75 mph or more are likely in the danger zone, prompting NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center to issue a level 2 out of 5 risk for severe weather.
“We’ve got an unfortunate setup here where more storms are targeting that area and potentially big winds,” said FOX Weather Meteorologist Amy Freeze. “Level two threat right now is in the next round, and 43 million people are in that danger zone that spreads from Chicago all the way to Pittsburgh. The bull’s eye is the red zone, the Detroit to Cleveland area in red.”
The threat of a redo of the heavy rains prompted the NWS to issue Flood Alerts as well. It comes amid a break in the stormy weather Thursday afternoon that may mask the dangers approaching later in the day.
“It’s a rather quiet afternoon from the upper Midwest, Great Lakes, all the way down through the Ohio Valley; hot, humid,” said Meteorologist Amy Freeze. “Don’t let down your guard here after sunset because riding the ridge(of high pressure to the south) is plenty of moisture and a front that’ll be pulled down from the north.”
The highest chance of storms comes in the evening as thunderstorms develop ahead of an approaching front. While the atmosphere will keep the weather in check for most of the day, watch for the lightning show after sundown across the lower Great Lakes and the upper Ohio Valley.
Through the evening and the overnight, watch storms develop across the central Appalachians as a second lobe of low pressure joins the storm.
More storms come Friday as the threat pushes east with the storm and cold front. Much of New York State and Pennsylvania will see pop-up thunderstorms. Through the overnight, the stormy threat heads into the I-95 corridor. New York and Boston will be waking up to wet streets on Saturday.
Another storm follows the first, bringing rain showers to the Northeast late Saturday as well.
Flash flooding across the Eastern Seaboard is possible, though not likely. The storms will net mainly 1 to 2 inches of rain.
Severe storms in first round skirted over a large ridge of high pressure that has been anchoring the hottest temperatures of the year over the Midwest Wednesday. Thunderstorms were funneled across Michigan and the Ohio Valley.
Stunned and stranded drivers in Lakewood, Ohio had to wait for rescue Wednesday night by rescue crews in rafts. Flooding in Parma, Ohio also left drivers stranded.
In Michigan, severe storms dropped enough rain to cut off Detroit’s airport with an impromptu moat.
Detroit received 3 inches of rain in about six hours on Thursday morning.